Quotes from the constitutional fathers of the United States of America on a variety of subjects:

• ARMS
  • “The 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.” (Samuel Adams, Debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.)
• FREEDOM
  • “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America’s heart, her benedictions and prayers, but she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator of her own. (John Quincy Adams, 1821).
  • Posterity will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. (John Quincy Adams)
• OPPRESSION:
  • “[I]t does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” (Samuel Adams)
  • “If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” (Samuel Adams, 1776)
• VIRTUE:
  • “[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen onto any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. (Samuel Adams)
  • “A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader… If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.” (Samuel Adams)
  • “Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.”(John Adams, 6th President of the U.S.)
  • “Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. Indeed the former is part of the latter, and consequently has not equal pretensions to support a frame of government productive of human happiness.” (John Adams, 6th President of the U.S.)
• VOTING
  • “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” (John Quincy Adams)