All quotes

that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth

the liberty of association is become a necessary guarantee against the tyranny of the majority

The loss of liberty, of all good government, of peace, plenty, and happiness, must inevitably follow a dissolution of the Union.

Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The defining character of American constitutional government is its constant tension between security and liberty, serving both by partial helpings of each.

The Revolution was made to preserve our ancient indisputable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty.

Always remember what is your own, and what belongs to another; and you will not be disturbed.

It is not possible that what is by nature free can be disturbed by anything else, or hindered by any other thing than by itself.

It is better for those who have almost unlimited power of government in their hands to err on the side of freedom.

To balance probabilities, where life and liberty hang on the result, requires steady nerves.

The guaranties of civil liberty are but guaranties of freedom of the human mind and spirit and of reasonable freedom and opportunity to express them.

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life.

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty.

In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.

The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is his own.

Limited as are the powers which have been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute a despotism if concentrated in one of the departments.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, real, covert zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate.

When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government,--that is despotism.

Considering standing armies as dangerous to free governments in time of peace, I shall not seek to enlarge our present establishment, nor disregard that salutary lesson of political experience which teaches that the military should be held subordinate to the civil power.

The American system rests on the assertion of the equal right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to freedom of conscience, to the culture and exercise of all his faculties.

The ancient republics absorbed the individual in the state--prescribed his religion and controlled his activity.

The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class,—it is the cause of human kind, the very birthright of humanity.