Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
Blind belief in authority
Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
Jaws of power
The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.
Curb your shame
If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies … It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.
Congress is not authorized
The said constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress
to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens
from keeping their own arms.
First duty of citizens
It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freeman of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle.
Honest differences
Honest difference of views and honest debate are not disunity. They are the vital process of policy among free men.
Education control
Let me control the textbooks and I will control the state.
Who to blame
Politicians, as I have often said, are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Continue reading “Who to blame”The danger of private interests
If a majority are capable of preferring their own private interest, or that of their families, counties, and party, to that of the nation collectively, some provision must be made in the constitution, in favor of justice, to compel all to respect the common right, the public good, the universal law, in preference to all private and partial considerations … And that the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of history … To remedy the dangers attendant upon the arbitrary use of power, checks, however multiplied, will scarcely avail without an explicit admission some limitation of the right of the majority to exercise sovereign authority over the individual citizen … In popular governments [democracies], minorities [individuals] constantly run much greater risk of suffering from arbitrary power than in absolute monarchies …