Excellent article, Rich!
The Founders put the burden of sustaining freedom on the shoulders of the people, and the people dropped the burden at the first opportunity.
@gwiss makes a good point about the Supreme Court seizing the power of judicial review...essentially making them both disproportionately powerful and less subject to accountability...that is the first example we have of the people failing to meet their obligations to defend themselves.
...and that was within the first generation, the people that set the deal up to begin with!
what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms. the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it's natural manure.
Thomas Jefferson to William Smith
Paris, Nov. 13. 1787
"Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people. The general government . . . can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any despotic or oppresive form so long as there is any virtue in the body of the people."
George Washington
I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Painting and Poetry Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.
John Adams to Abigail Adams
12 May 1780
I'll note that Adams is wrong...every generation of man must study government and war to meet their moral duties!
Given that they must have recognized their mortality, they did what they could with what they had to work with. You have to understand, this was something that hadn't really been tried in the same way before.
I sent away years ago for the entire correspondence of Jefferson and Madison (2 -3 volumes). I had a wise old philosophy prof that told me if you really want to know what these kind of people think, their works are ok, but their correspondence really puts ypu in touch with what they think. The prose is beautiful!
I Remain, your most humble and obedient servant my dear Sir,
Hi @stevescoins ! As a "collector" of Founding Father quotes I am always happy to see them cited by others. That said, I do not think your second quotation (by Washington) is accurate. I could certainly be mistaken, but I do not recognize the first half. The second half is clearly from a letter to Lafayette dated February 7, 1788, in which he discusses his support for the Constitution. Washington writes,
"With regard to the two great points (the pivots on which the whole machine must move) my Creed is simply:
1st That the general Government is not invested with more Powers than are indispensably necessary to perform [the] functions of a good Government; and, consequently, that no objection ought to be made against the quantity of Power delegated to it.
2ly That these Powers (as the appointment of all Rulers will forever arise from, and, at short stated intervals, recur to the free suffrage of the People) are so distributed among the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches, into which the general Government is arranged, that it can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarcchy, an Oligarchy, an Aristocracy, or any other despotic or oppressive form; so long as there shall remain any virtue in the body of the People."
ALSO, how did you indent your quotations to separate them from the rest of the text body??
thank you for the correction and source!
to indent, you will use the ">" character at the beginning of the line; each subsequent line will be part of the quote, to end the indent, simply skip a line or introduce a new Markdown symbol (Markdown is the "language" for formatting Steemit)