Tag Archives: Constitution

First Principles: Our Constitution Was Made For A Moral and Religious People and Is Inadequate To Govern Otherwise

“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 … Continue reading

Posted in First Principles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

First Principles: No Government Has The Power to Contend With Human Passions Unbridled By Morality and Religion

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion… Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – … Continue reading

Posted in First Principles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

First Principles: Constitutions For Free Persons Should Aim At Common Advantage of the Community

“Constitutions which aim at the common advantage are correct and just without qualification, whereas those which aim only at the advantage of the rulers are deviant and unjust, because they involve despotic rule, which is inappropriate for a community of … Continue reading

Posted in First Principles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

First Principles: A Sacred Respect for Constitutional Law Is the Vital Principle Sustaining Our Republic’s Security

“If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last… … Continue reading

Posted in First Principles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

First Principles: The Constitution Is An Instrument For The People To Restrain the Government

“[Our Constitution] is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.” – Patrick Henry      

Posted in First Principles | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

First Principles: Disarming the People Is the Most Effective Means of Enslaving Them

“Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual … Continue reading

Posted in First Principles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

First Principles: The Constitution Is An Instrument For the People To Restrain the Government

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.” – Patrick Henry      

Posted in First Principles | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

First Principles: The Branches of Our Government Are Co-Equal

“I acknowledge, in the ordinary course of government, that the exposition of the laws and Constitution devolves upon the judicial. But I beg to know upon what principle it can be contended that any one department draws from the Constitution … Continue reading

Posted in First Principles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

First Principles: A Breakdown In the People’s Manners and Spirit Leads To the Destruction of Its Laws and Constitution

“It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.”  – Thomas Jefferson (1781)      

Posted in First Principles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

First Principles: The Possibilities of Mischief In the Governance of Man Should Remain Bound By the Constitution

“In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson (1798)    

Posted in First Principles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment