Patrick Henry

"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave."

--Patrick Henry, speech at the Virginia Convention, 1775

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John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson

"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves."

--John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of the Cause and Necessity of Taking up Arms, 1775

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George Washington

"[P]erfection falls not to the share of mortals." --

George Washington

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Thomas Paine

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
--Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, 1776

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James Madison

"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."
--James Madison, letter to Henry Lee, 1824

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Joseph Story

"Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors."

--Joseph Story

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Thomas Jefferson

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.... Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."

--Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on National Bank, 1791

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Thomas Jefferson

"The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption -- a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated, not those who opposed it, and who opposed it merely lest the construction should be applied which they denounced as possible."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Mesrs. Eddy, Russel, Thurber, Wheaton and Smith, 1801

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Thomas Jefferson

"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular."

--Thomas Jefferson

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Justice Joseph Story

"The duty imposed upon [the president] to take care, that the laws be faithfully executed, follows out the strong injunctions of his oath of office, that he will 'preserve, protect, and defend the constitution.' The great object of the executive department is to accomplish this purpose; and without it, be the form of government whatever it may, it will be utterly worthless for offence, or defence; for the redress of grievances, or the protection of rights; for the happiness, or good order, or safety of the people."

--Justice Joseph Story

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Thomas Jefferson

"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 1823

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Margaret Thatcher

"They have the usual socialist disease; they have run out of other people's money."  

-- Margaret Thatcher

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George Washington

"The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment."

--George Washington

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Joseph Story

"The plain import of the clause is, that congress shall have all the incidental and instrumental powers, necessary and proper to carry into execution all the express powers. It neither enlarges any power specifically granted; nor is it a grant of any new power to congress. But it is merely a declaration for the removal of all uncertainty, that the means of carrying into execution those, otherwise granted, are included in the grant."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

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Joseph Story

"The constitution of the United States is to receive a reasonable interpretation of its language, and its powers, keeping in view the objects and purposes, for which those powers were conferred. By a reasonable interpretation, we mean, that in case the words are susceptible of two different senses, the one strict, the other more enlarged, that should be adopted, which is most consonant with the apparent objects and intent of the Constitution."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

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James Madison

"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

--James Madison

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Thomas Jefferson

"On 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 passed."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 1823

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George Washington

"The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position."

--George Washington

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Thomas Jefferson

"[T]he true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Albert Gallatin, 1808

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"By exclusive property, the productions of the earth and the means of subsistence are secured and preserved, as well as multiplied. What belongs to no one is wasted by every one. What belongs to one man in particular is the object of his economy and care."

--James Wilson

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Thomas Jefferson

"The construction applied ... to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power ... ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument."

--Thomas Jefferson, Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798

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Thomas Jefferson

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."

--Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson

"Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Wilson Nicholas, 1803

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Alexander Hamilton

"[T]he Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution. But this doctrine is not deducible from any circumstance peculiar to the plan of convention, but from the general theory of a limited Constitution."

--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 81

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Captain John Parker

"Don't fire unless fired upon. But if they want a war let it begin here."

--Captain John Parker, commander of the militiamen at Lexington, Massachusetts, on sighting British Troops

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Gen. Anthony McAuliffe

"Nuts!" -- Gen. Anthony McAuliffe
Commander of the 101st Airborne Division, when the German's offered him the chance to surrender.

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