Founders’ Quotes, Quotes PING
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Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Bastiat were taught in school? This is how people ought to see the world.
The CURE?: A republic of several States that stand against the Central Government.. and central democracy.. or a central MoB that controls all the State Mobs.. Better the State MOBs fight against each other.. to keep them busy..
“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions.” James Madison, “Letter to Edmund Pendleton,”
— James Madison, January 21, 1792
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
— James Madison, 4 Annals of congress 179 (1794)
“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
— James Madison, speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 16, 1788
“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”
—Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1817
“the true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best . . . (for) when all government . . . shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as . . . oppressive as the government from which we separated.”
—Thomas Jefferson
“We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute.”
— Thomas Paine
“We must confine ourselves to the powers described in the Constitution, and the moment we pass it, we take an arbitrary stride towards a despotic Government.”
— James Jackson, First Congress, 1st Annals of Congress, 489
Being a public school graduate 1974, I don't recall Bastiat in our reading. I am currently reading Washington Irving's Life of Washington, in 4 volumes and really enjoy the thought-fullness exhibited in the letters quoted of those involved in the founding. It has taken me a couple months because the idiom and many archaic usages, but well worth the time.
However Bastiat writing in 1850 about slavery and tariffs is not really one of the founders, but a second generation thinker applying the founders principles/insights to the issues of his times.
Reference bump! ;-)
Glad to see this going again.
That would end 90% of Government, which is illegimate.