United States Citizen-Taxpayers against Foreign Invasion, Foreign Aid, Involuntary Taxation without Consent and Representation, and the National Debt. "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature
and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation....
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness....
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.... Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government....
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent...."
~ The Declaration of Independence
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby...."
~ The Constitution of the United States, Article VI
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion."
~ The Constitution of the United States, Article IV, Section 4
"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections ... shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof...."
~ The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 4
"No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
~ Amendment V
"The President shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
~ The Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 1
"The Senators and Representatives, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution."
~ The Constitution of the United States, Article VI
~
"The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. With respect to the words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions. It is to be remarked that the phrase out of which this doctrine is elaborated, is copied from the old articles of Confederation, where it was always understood as nothing more than a general caption to the specified powers, and it is a fact that it was preferred in the new instrument for that very reason as less liable than any other to misconstruction. . . . I have always conceived -- I believe those who proposed the Constitution conceived -- it is still more fully known, and more material to observe, that those who ratified the Constitution conceived -- that this is not an indefinite government, deriving its powers from the general terms prefixed to the specified powers -- but a limited government, tied down to the specified powers, which explain and define the general terms. The terms 'common defence and general welfare' are not novel terms first introduced into this Constitution. They are terms familiar in their construction, and well known to the people of America. It was always considered clear and certain that the old Congress was limited to the enumerated powers, and that the enumeration limited and explained the general terms. If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their Own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare. . . . A pure Democracy, by which I mean a Society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the Government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of Government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of Government, have erroneously supposed, that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions. Without going farther into the subject, I venture to declare it as my opinion, that, were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America; and what inferences might be drawn, or what consequences ensue, from such a step, it is incumbent on us all to consider."
~ James Madison, President, "Father of Constitution", author of Bill of Rights, Federalist Papers
"I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful exercise of its powers. If the meaning of the text be sought in the changeable meaning of the words composing it, it is evident that the shape and attributes of the Government must partake of the changes to which the words and phrases of all living languages are constantly subject. What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense."
~ to Henry Lee, 25 June 1824
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/04-03-02-0333
"A State may rightfully secede from its constitutional compact with other States if an abuse of the compact absolves the seceding party from the obligations imposed by it."
~ James Madison
~
"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind. The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen, in his person and property, and in their management. I place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale. Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But 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. A free people claim their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate. The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, and to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe."
~ Thomas Jefferson, President
author of Declaration of Independence
"[O]n every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was past."
~ to William Johnson, 12 June 1823
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-3562
~
"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."
~ George Washington, President, General (American Revolution-Independence)
~
"It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. The origin of all civil government, justly established, must be a voluntary compact, between the rulers and the ruled; and must be liable to such limitations, as are necessary for the security of the absolute rights of the latter; for what original title can any man or set of men have, to govern others, except their own consent? To usurp dominion over a people, in their own despite, or to grasp at a more extensive power than they are willing to entrust, is to violate that law of nature, which gives every man a right to his personal liberty; and can, therefore, confer no obligation to obedience."
~ Alexander Hamilton, Military Commander (American Revolution-Independence), Federalist Papers
~
"Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as Aristocracy or Monarchy. But while it lasts it is more bloody than either. Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit su***de. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy. It is not true in Fact and no where appears in history. Those Passions are the same in all Men under all forms of Simple Government, and when unchecked, produce the same Effects of Fraud Violence and Cruelty. When clear Prospects are opened before Vanity, Pride, Avarice or Ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate Philosophers and the most conscientious Moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves, Nations and large Bodies of Men, never. The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to be careful to prevent their growth in our own. There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."
~ John Adams, President
~
"The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived."
~ John Quincy Adams, President
~
"We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate . . . as it has everywhere terminated, in despotism. Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt."
~ Gouverneur Morris
~
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs
https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/revolution/home.html
https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/1812/
