All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.
- James Madison
Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.
- James Madison
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
- James Madison
It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.
- James Madison
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
- James Madison
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people ... they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
- James Madison
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
- James Madison
The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.
- James Madison
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
- James Madison
The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
- James Madison
Fear is the foundation of most governments.
- John Adams
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
- James Madison
To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.
- James Madison
War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.
- James Madison
We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
- James Madison
What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?
- James Madison
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
- Benjamin Franklin
Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.
- James Madison
Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.
- James Madison
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
- James Madison
A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.
- James Madison
Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.
- George Washington
National honor is the national property of the highest value.
- James Monroe
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
- George Washington
Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth.
- George Washington
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
- George Washington
Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.
- George Washington
If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
- George Washington
Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.
- George Washington
The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.
- George Washington
The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.
- George Washington
The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.
- George Washington
Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.
- George Washington
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
- Abraham Lincoln
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.
- Abraham Lincoln
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
- Theodore Roosevelt
We are at the parting of the ways. We have, not one or two or three, but many, established and formidable monopolies in the United States. We have, not one or two, but many, fields of endeavor into which it is difficult, if not impossible, for the independent man to enter. We have restricted credit, we have restricted opportunity, we have controlled development, and we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world — no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.
- Woodrow Wilson
Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.
- Woodrow Wilson
Liberty is its own reward.
- Woodrow Wilson
We stand equally against government by a plutocracy and government by a mob. There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with "the money touch," but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.
- Theodore Roosevelt (to Sir Edward Grey)
If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world.
- Theodore Roosevelt
I abhor unjust war. I abhor injustice and bullying by the strong at the expense of the weak, whether among nations or individuals. I abhor violence and bloodshed. I believe that war should never be resorted to when, or so long as, it is honorably possible to avoid it. I respect all men and women who from high motives and with sanity and self-respect do all they can to avert war. I advocate preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should never advocate war unless it were the only alternative to dishonor.
- Theodore Roosevelt
The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson — and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of Woodrow Wilson. The country is going through a repetition of Jackson's fight with the Bank of the United States — only on a far bigger and broader basis.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any other controlling private power. The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living. Both lessons hit home. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers ... call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America. Work must be found for able-bodied but destitute workers. The Federal Government must and shall quit this business of relief.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor — other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
When our Federal Government, that has the exclusive power to create money, creates that money and then goes into the open market and borrows it and pays interest for the use of its own money, it occurs to me that that is going too far. I have never yet had anyone who could, through the use of logic and reason, justify the Federal Government borrowing the use of its own money... The Constitution of the United States does not give the banks the power to create money. The Constitution says that Congress shall have the power to create money, but now, under our system, we will sell bonds to commercial banks and obtain credit from those banks. I believe the time will come when people will demand that this be changed. I believe the time will come in this country when they will actually blame you and me and everyone else connected with this Congress for sitting idly by and permitting such an idiotic system to continue. I make that statement after years of study.
- Congressman Wright Patman (Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency for 40 years, 1929-1976. For 20 of those years, he introduced legislation to repeal the Federal Reserve Banking Act of 1913.)
This institution (privately owned central banks like the Federal Reserve) is one of the most deadly hostility against the principles of our Constitution ... suppose a series of emergencies should occur ... an institution like this…in a critical moment might overthrow the government.
- Thomas Jefferson
Why then should we go into Wall Street, State Street, Chestnut Street, or any other street, begging for money? Their money (private bank’s) is not as secure as Government money ... I am unwilling that this government should be left in the hands of any class of men, bankers or moneylenders, however respectable or patriotic they may be. The Government is much stronger than any of them.
- Congressman E. G. Spaulding, 1862 speech to Congress in favor of issuing Greenbacks to pay for the Civil War rather than government borrowing.
The real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self created screen....At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both political parties.
- New York City Mayor John F. Hylan, 1922
The depression was the calculated 'shearing' of the public by the World Money powers, triggered by the planned sudden shortage of supply of call money in the New York money market....The One World Government leaders and their ever close bankers have now acquired full control of the money and credit machinery of the U.S. via the creation of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank.
- Curtis Dall (Franklin Roosevelt's Son-in-Law), 1967
There exists a shadowy Government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself.
- Senator Daniel K. Inouye
Dynastic wealth, the enemy of a meritocracy, is on the rise. Equality of opportunity has been on the decline. A progressive and meaningful estate tax is needed to curb the movement of a democracy toward plutocracy.
- Warren Buffett, 2007
