Founders Friday, Friday, February 3, 2012, Dr. Jedidiah Morse

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"To the kindly influence of Christianity, we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoy. In proportion, as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions; in the same proportion will the people of the nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom and approximate the miseries of complete despotism." (1799)

Founders Friday, January 20, 2012

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"Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being....And, consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will...this will of his Maker is called the law of nature. These laws laid down by God are the eternal immutable laws of good and evil...This law of nature dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this..."

Sir William Blackstone

Founders Friday, Friday, January 13, 2012, James Madison

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A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

Founders Friday, Friday, January 6, 2012, Thomas Jefferson

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If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.

Founders Friday, Friday, December 30, 2011 – James Madison

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"A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species. "

Founders Friday, Friday, December 23, 2011 – John Quincy Adams

Image via Wikipedia"The hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith. Whoever believes in the divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures must hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth. Never since the foundation of the world have the prospects of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they appear to be at the present time. And may the associated distribution of the Bible proceed and prosper till the Lord shall have made 'bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God' (Isaiah 52:10)."

Founders Friday, Friday, December 16, 2011 – Thomas Jefferson

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"When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."

Founders Friday, Friday, December 9, 2011 – Samuel Adams

Image via Wikipedia"Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt."

Founders Friday, Friday, December 2, 2011 – Patrick Henry

Image via Wikipedia"This book [The Bible] is worth all the books that ever were printed, and it has been my misfortune that I never found time to read it with the proper attention and feeling till lately. I trust in the mercy of heaven that it is not too late."

Friday, November 25, 2011 – Lewis Morris

Image by cliff1066™ via Flickr"Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare the truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare." - - Lewis Morris

Friday, November 18, 2011 – George Washington

Image by cliff1066™ via Flickr"A people... who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything." - - George Washington

Founders Friday, Friday, November 11, 2011 – Samuel Adams

Image via Wikipedia“It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”

Founders Friday, Friday, November 4, 2011 – Josiah Bartlett

Image via Wikipedia"Firstly I commit my Soul into the hands of God, its great and benevolent author." - - Josiah Bartlett

Founders Friday, Friday, October 28, 2011, John Adams

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"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself."

John Adams

Founders Friday, Friday, October 14, 2011

Cover of Dwight D. Eisenhower

Today, not exactly a quote from the Founding Fathers, but certainly a quote following in their footsteps.

"Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Founders Friday, Friday, October 7, 2011

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Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian Nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.

  

                                            John Jay

Founders Friday, Friday, September 30, 2011 – Benjamin Franklin

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"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"

Founders Friday, Friday, September 23, 2011 – Charles Carroll

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Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments."

Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence

Founders Friday, Friday, September 16, 2011 – John Adams

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We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

John Adams (The Works of John Adams, ed. C. F. Adams, Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1851, 4:31)

Founders Friday, Friday, September 9, 2011 – Alexander Hamilton

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To grant that there is a supreme intelligence who rules the world and has established laws to regulate the actions of his creatures; and still to assert that man, in a state of nature, may be considered as perfectly free from all restraints of law and government, appears to a common understanding altogether irreconcilable. Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed that the deity, from the relations we stand in to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever. This is what is called the law of nature....Upon this law depend the natural rights of mankind.