"Wrong doesn't turn into right, just because the majority agrees to it."
-- (unknown)
"There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt."
-- John Adams, 1826
"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men."
-- Samuel Adams
"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of The United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms ...."
-- Samuel Adams, printed in Debates and
Proceedings in the Convention of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at pg. 86-87
(Peirce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)
"I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace."
-- Thomas Paine