“Whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of civil government.” – 1811 New York Supreme Court

Founding Fathers’ Quotes (& Others)

“Now more than ever, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.  If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature.” – James A. Garfield, 20^th President.

“The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.” – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 21, 1787

“Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, Judges, and Governors, shall all become wolves.” – Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787

“But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” – John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, July 17, 1775

“Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” – John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” – James Madison, speech in the Virginia constitutional convention, Dec 2, 1829

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.” – Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14, 1781

“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” – Benjamin Franklin (attributed), at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

“All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.” – James Madison, speech at the Constitutional Convention, July 11, 1787

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” – James Madison, speech in the Virginia constitutional convention, Dec 2, 1829

“The house of representatives…can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.” – James Madison, Federalist No. 57, February 19, 1788

“Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.” – James Madison, letter to Thomas Jefferson, October 17, 1788

“A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired.” – Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, February 23, 1775

“If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.” – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 33, January 3, 1788

“At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that the invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account.” – Thomas Jefferson, letter to Monsieur A. Coray, Oct 31, 1823

“It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia Query 19, 1781

“The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institution may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances be made subservient to the vilest purposes. Should, hereafter, those incited by the lust of power and prompted by the Supineness or venality of their Constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to shew, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting an inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchm[en]t can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other.” – George Washington, fragments of the Draft First Inaugural Address, April 1789

“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.” – Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

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When we as a nation and its leaders know, pursue and pray for the righteousness that God desires, as modeled by the Founding Fathers of America (i.e. our Godly heritage), then God will respond to our obedience and faith in Him with blessing and exultation for our nation, as He promised.  Psalm 33:12 states: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” and Proverbs 14:34 says: “Righteousness exalts a nation…”

I have a passion to educate American citizens and inspire them to re-establish our country’s foundations with the Biblical principles that God had originally designed for us.  I have prepared an educational presentation intended to ignite a spark in the hearts of fellow believers to remain silent no longer.  I proclaim the truths of America’s Godly heritage and provide action ideas for all ages.  “If God is for us, who can be against us?” – Romans 8:31

Blessings, Tom Hughes

[email protected]