The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis Quotes

“GENESIS 1:27 God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 2 JEREMIAH 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you. 3 ISAIAH 49:15-16 I will not forget you! Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“JAMES MADISON 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.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“31 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS The Declaration of Independence was the first solemn declaration, by a nation, of the only legitimate foundation of civil government. It was the cornerstone of a new fabric, destined to cover the surface of the globe. It demolished at a stroke the lawfulness of all governments founded upon conquest. It swept away all the rubbish of accumulated centuries of servitude. It announced in practical form to the world the transcendent truth of the inalienable sovereignty of the people. It stands, and must forever stand, alone — a beacon on the summit of the mountain, to which all the inhabitants of the earth may turn their eyes for a genial and saving light. So long as this planet shall be inhabited by human beings, so long as man shall be of a social nature, so long as government shall be necessary to the great moral purposes of society, so long as it shall be abused to the purposes of oppression, the Declaration will stand a light of admonition to the rulers of men, a light of salvation and redemption to the oppressed; for it will hold out to the sovereign and to the subject the extent and the boundaries of their respective rights and duties, founded in the laws of nature and of nature's God.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and a usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“french diplomat traveled to America, and upon his return, wrote: 56 ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness, did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“For as there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. A republican form of government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. 33 GEORGE WASHINGTON A constitutional republic is not the phantom of a deluded imagination. On the contrary, laws under no form of government are better supported, liberty and property better secured, or happiness more effectually dispensed to mankind. 34 PATRICK HENRY For in a republic, the Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government — lest the government come to dominate their lives and interests.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“42 THOMAS JEFFERSON We must prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them. To take from one, because it is thought his own has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“My friends, I study politics and war, that my children may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My children study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“For it is yet to be decided, whether the Revolution must ultimately be considered as a blessing or a curse — a blessing or a curse not to the present age alone, for with our fate will the destiny”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“21 JOHN STUART MILL I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, whether directly or through their government. The power of coercion itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more right to it than the worst. 22 GEORGE WASHINGTON If we are to be precluded from offering sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can invite the consideration of mankind, then reason is of no use to us; the freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter!”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“13 JOHN STUART MILL The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing not one individual but the human race; those who dissent from the opinion even more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, the dissenter is deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth. If the opinion is wrong, the dissenter loses the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. 14 JOHN STUART MILL For he who knows only his own side of the argument knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“SCRIBE And an asylum they created. For in the United States, 5 JAMES MADISON the First Amendment protects our right to think what we like and say what we please. And if we the people are to govern ourselves, we must have these rights, even if they are misused by a minority.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“9 HENRY WARD BEECHER When I see a nation's flag, I see not the flag only, but the nation itself; the government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the nation that sets it forth. 10 HENRY WARD BEECHER If anyone asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him — it means just what Concord and Lexington meant; what Bunker Hill meant: which was, in short, the rising up of a valiant, young people against an old tyranny to establish the most momentous doctrine that the world has ever known — the right of individuals to their own selves and to their liberties.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“7 ALEXANDER HAMILTON The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemptions of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice; and on a love of country. 8 GEORGE WASHINGTON The name of “American,” which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt in you a just pride of patriotism. For you are citizens by birth or choice of this common country, a country that has a right to concentrate your affections.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“36 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS My fellow citizens, your individual liberty is your individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of powerful individuals, the nation whose people enjoys the most freedom will be, in proportion to its numbers, the most powerful nation on earth. 37 JAMES MADISON For we stake the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We stake the future of American civilization upon the capacity of mankind for self-government.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“15 GEORGE WASHINGTON We believe that human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected; That your love of liberty — your respect for the laws — your habits of industry — your practice of the moral and religious obligations, these are our strongest claims to national and individual happiness.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“6 THOMAS JEFFERSON Mankind by its constitution is naturally divided into two parties: Those who fear and distrust the people and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the elite. And those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as most honest and trustworthy. In every country these two parties exist; and in every one where people are free to think, speak, and write, these two parties will declare themselves.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“THOMAS JEFFERSON For me, I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. 3”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“2 ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE In these systems, government stands above men as an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates their property, and subdivides their inheritances.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“1 THOMAS PAINE When I contemplate the natural dignity of humanity, the honor and happiness of its character, I become irate at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if we were all knaves and fools.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“30 EDMUND BURKE What sort of a thing must be a nation of ferocious and sordid barbarians, destitute of religion, honor, or manly pride, possessing nothing at present, and hoping for nothing hereafter? Their liberty is not liberal. Their science is presumptuous ignorance. Their humanity is savage and brutal. 31 JOHN ADAMS  Hence, they could never be governed but by force since neither virtue, prudence, wisdom, nor anything else sufficed to restrain their passions.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“27 ABRAHAM LINCOLN We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“26 THOMAS JEFFERSON How can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift of God?”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“GEORGE WASHINGTON And let us with caution indulge the supposition that virtue and morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.

“15 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
― Steven Rabb, The Founders' Speech to a Nation in Crisis: What the Founders would say to America today.