Never mind the labels, "conservative" and "libertarian." If either Cruz or Paul could be successful in articulating the following ideas from America's founding philosophy to today's citizens, as they have opportunity over the next year, then they might help to turn the minds of current generations toward a passion for individual liberty:
1. "The first grand right is that of the people having a share in their own government by their representatives chosen by themselves, and...of being ruled by laws which they themselves approve, not by edicts of men over whom they have no controul...." - John Adams 2. "The next great right is that of trial by jury. This provides that neither life, liberty nor property can be taken from the possessor, until twelve of his...countrymen...shall pass their sentence upon oath against him."- John Adams
3. Adams called these two "popular powers...the heart and lungs...and without them," he said, "the body must die...the government must become arbitrary."
4. "Government is instituted to protect property of every sort....This being the end of government, that is NOT a just government,...nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has...is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest." - James Madison
5. "The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God...anarchy and tyranny commence. PROPERTY MUST BE SECURED OR LIBERTY CANNOT EXIST." - John Adams
6. "The first grand right is that of the people having a share in their own government by their representatives chosen by themselves, and...of being ruled by laws which they themselves approve....This is a bulwark surrounding and defining their property, which by their...labours they have acquired, so that no portions of it can be legally taken away from them but with their full and free consent." - Adopted by the Continental Congress-1774
7. "Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions." - James Madison-1792
8. "A right to property is founded in our natural wants, in the means with which we are endowed to satisfy these wants, and the right to what we acquire by those means without violating the similar rights of other sensible beings." - Thomas Jefferson-1816
9. "That a People should be taxed at the Will of another, whether of one Man or many, without their own Consent in Person or by Representative, is rank Slavery. For if their Superior sees fit, they may be deprived of their whole Property, upon any frivolous Pretext, or without any Pretext at all. And a People without Property, or in the precarious Possession of it, are in no better State than Slaves; for Liberty, or even Life itself, without the Enjoyment of them flowing from Property, are of no Value." - Boston Gazette-1765
10. "Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently to build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence....I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good." - Abraham Lincoln
11. "No man would become a member of a community in which he could not enjoy the fruits of his honest labor and industry. The preservation of property, then, is a primary object of the social compact....The legislature, therefore, had no authority to make an act divesting one citizen of his freehold, and vesting it in another, without a just compensation. It is inconsistent with the principles of reason, justice, and moral rectitude; it is incompatible with the comfort, peace and happiness of mankind; it is contrary to the principles of social alliance in every free government; and lastly, it is contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution. - "Supreme Court-1795
12. " 'To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States': that is to say, 'to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.' For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. Congress are not to levy taxes, ad libitum, for any purpose they please: but only to pay the debts, or provide for the welfare of the union. In like manner, they are not to do any thing 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 might be for the good of 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 pleased. It is an established rule of construction [interpretation], where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which will render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers, and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect." - (Emphasis added) Thomas Jefferson-1791
13. "If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature...." - Thomas Jefferson-1787
14. "To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association--the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it." - Thomas Jefferson-1816
15. "There is not, of necessity, any such thing as the free hired labourer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these states, a few years back in their lives, were hired labourers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages a while, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself; then labours on his own account for another while, and at length, hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just, and generous, and prosperous system which opens the way to all-- gives hope to all--and consequent energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all." - Abraham Lincoln-1861
16. "I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people....' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporators of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution." - Thomas Jefferson-1791
17. "It has been urged and echoed, that the power 'to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States,' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defence or general welfare...But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?...For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor more common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which...we must take the liberty of supposing had not its origin (with the authors of the Constitution)." -James Madison-Federalist No. 41
18. "If we can prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy." - Thomas Jefferson
19. "The Utopian schemes of leveling [redistribution of wealth] and a community of goods [common ownership], are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional." - Samuel Adams
20. "I think myself, that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." - Thomas Jefferson
21. "Economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burdened, I deem (one of the) essential principles of our government and, consequently (one) which ought to shape its administrations." - Thomas Jefferson-First Inaugural
22. "I am not among those who fear the people. They...are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds...our people...must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they (the British) now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers....This example reads to us the salutary lesson that private fortunes are destroyed by public, as well as by private extravagance. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from the principle in one instance, becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the 'bellum omnium in omnia,' which some philosophers...have mistaken for the natural, instead of the abusive, state of man. And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression." - Thomas Jefferson
23. "I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse." - James Madison
24. "The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale....We shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves...." - Thomas Jefferson
25. "The interest of the national debt [in England] is now equal to such a portion of the profits of all the land and the labor of the island, as not to leave enough for the subsistence of those who labor. Hence the owners of the land abandon it and retire to other countries, and the laborer has not enough of his earnings left to him to cover his back and to fill his belly....The landholder has nothing of his own to give; he is but the fiduciary of those who have lent him money; the lender is so taxed in his meat, drink, and clothing, that he has but a bare subsistence left." - Thomas Jefferson
26. "I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing." - Thomas Jefferson-1798
27. "...it is no child's play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation...The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of a free society. And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of success." - Abraham Lincoln
28. "That paper money has some advantages, is admitted. But that its abuses also are inevitable, and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property...Shall we ever be able to put a constitutional veto on it?" - Thomas Jefferson-1817
29. "Whenever the paper has not been convertible into specie [gold and silver coin], and its quantity has depended on the policy of the Government, a depreciation has been produced by an undue increase, or an apprehension of it...." - James Madison-1820
30. "Specie [gold or silver coin] is the most perfect medium because it will preserve its own level; because having intrinsic and universal value, it can never die in our hands, and it is the surest resource of reliance in time of war." - Thomas Jefferson-1813
31. "James Madison left his testimony [in his personal notes of the Convention proceedings] that 'the pretext for a paper currency, and particularly for making the bills a tender, either for public or private debts, was cut off.' This is the interpretation of the clause (Art. I, Sec. 8), made at the time of its adoption alike by its authors and by its opponents, accepted by all the statesmen of that age, not open to dispute because too clear for argument, and never disputed so long as any one man who took part in framing the constitution remained alive." - George Bancroft-History of the U. S. of America-1886
32. "We are now taught to believe that...tricks upon paper can produce as solid wealth as hard labor in the earth. It is vain for common sense to urge that nothing can produce but nothing..." - Thomas Jefferson-1816
33. "Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some....Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency....(It) does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose...." - John Maynard Keynes-The Economic Consequences of the Peace-1920
34. "We should avoid...the depreciation of our currency; but I conceive this end would be answered, as far as might be necessary, by stipulating that all money payments should be made in gold and silver, being the common medium of commerce." - George Washington
35. "It is apparent from the whole context of the Constitution as well as the history of the time which gave birth to it, that it was the purpose of the Convention to establish a currency consisting of the precious metals. These were adopted by a permanent rule excluding the use of a perishable medium of exchange...or the still more pernicious expedient of paper currency." - Andrew Jackson-8th Annual Message to Congress
36. "...nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society." - John Adams
37. "This was a favorable moment to shut and bar the door against paper money." [This statement referred to a proposed provision in Article I, Section 8, that would have read 'and emit bills of credit (paper money) of the United States,' which the Founders rejected by an overwhelming vote.] - James Madison- Notes of the Federal Convention 1787
38. "...there have always been those who wish to enlarge the powers of the General Government. There is but one safe rule...confine (it) within the sphere of its appropriate duties. It has no power to raise a revenue or impose taxes except for the purposes enumerated in the Constitution....Every attempt to exercise power beyond these limits should be promptly and firmly opposed." - Andrew Jackson's Valedictory
39. "...experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government), those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate...the minds of the people...to give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth. History, by apprizing them of the past, will enable them to judge of the future...it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views...." - Jefferson's Bill for the more general diffusion of knowledge for Virginia
40. "Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant--they have been cheated; asleep--they have been surprised; divided--the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson?...the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it....It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free." - James Madison
41. "These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety." - Thomas Jefferson- First Inaugural Statement of Principles of Good Government
