Founding Fathers Government Quotes

#1. Coercion by government, the main fear of our founding fathers, is now its most common attribute.

Philip K. Howard

#2. The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.

Ronald Reagan

#3. I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

Thomas Jefferson

#4. To take a single step beyond the boundaries specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to definition.

Thomas Jefferson

#5. The notion of a world government to defend our rights would have sent the founding fathers running for their muskets.

Pat Buchanan

#6. Maintaining checks and balances on the power of the Judiciary Branch and the other two branches is vital to keep the form of government set up by our Founding Fathers.

Todd Tiahrt

#7. Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right.

Joseph Sobran

#8. One thing is clear: The Founding Fathers never intended a nation where citizens would pay nearly half of everything they earn to the government.

Ron Paul

#9. The Second Amendment is timeless for our Founders grasped that self-defense is three-fold: every free individual must protect themselves against the evil will of the man, the mob and the state.

Tiffany Madison

#10. Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional Republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it.

Steve King

#11. The federal government is far larger than the Founding Fathers ever intended it to be. We have racked up over $16 trillion of debt through wasteful spending, and it is time that we cut that waste and start reducing the size of our government.

Matt Salmon

#12. The Founding Fathers set up a system that heavily relied upon self-reliance and competition, with only a small dose of government intrusion.

Bill O'Reilly

#13. Franklin may ... be considered one of the founding fathers of American democracy, since no democratic government can last long without conciliation and compromise.

Samuel Eliot Morison

#14. I hope we shall ... crush in it's birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country.

Thomas Jefferson

#15. Our founding fathers could not have foreseen that freedom of the press might eventually be threatened just as much by media consolidation as by government.

Marshall Herskovitz

#16. Outlawing religion form the political arena is not what the Founding Fathers intended when they drafted the First Amendment. We do a grave disservice to our country by removing the influence of religion. If you separate God from the public arena, inevitably you separate good from our government.

Bill Bright

#17. The Founding Fathers did not believe the primary purpose of their guns was to hunt ducks, but to keep the government in line within the bounds of the Constitution. The Founding Fathers said that armed citizens are a bulwark against a tyrant in the White House.

John Coleman

#18. It's government's job to respect and protect the rights of the individual. That vision is centrally important to the principle put forth by the Founding Fathers. If you don't believe that, you shouldn't be in Congress.

Bill Sali

#19. I do believe that it was through divine providence that the Founding Fathers drafted a document that created a government that didn't trust each other - hence the separation of powers. And then, to close the deal, the Bill of Rights was added to continue to protect individual rights and freedoms.

John Shimkus

#20. I think the founding fathers believed religion shouldn't interact directly with government.

Jesse Ventura

#21. All the warnings the founding fathers gave us about government proved to be true. We should have listened.

James Cook

#22. One legislator accused me of having a 19th century attitude on law and order. That is a totally false charge. I have an 18th century attitude. That is when the Founding Fathers made it clear that the safety of law abiding citizens should be one of government's primary concerns.

Jeffrey Gitomer

#23. The founding fathers went out of their way to establish a clear "wall of separation" between religion and state, to quote Thomas Jefferson. They reasoned, as James Madison so cleverly articulated, that both religion and government exist in greater purity if kept apart.

Phil Zuckerman

#24. The threat to change Senate rules is a raw abuse of power and will destroy the very checks and balances our founding fathers put in place to prevent absolute power by any one branch of government,

Harry Reid

#25. When our Founding Fathers passed the First Amendment, they sought to protect churches from government interference. They never intended to construct a wall of hostility between government and the concept of religious belief itself.

Ronald Reagan

#26. I favor free trade in drugs for the same reason the Founding Fathers favored free trade in ideas: in a free society it is none of the government's business what ideas a man puts into his mind; likewise, it should be none of its business what drugs he puts into his body.

Thomas Szasz

#27. Government is necessary for our survival. We need government in order to survive. The Founding Fathers created a special place for government. It is called the Constitution.

Michael Badnarik

#28. What the Founding Fathers created in the Constitution is the most magnificent government on the face of the Earth, and the reason is this: because it was intended to preserve the American society and the American spirit, not to transform it or destroy it.

Mark Levin

#29. The Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to bare the secrets of government and inform the people.

Hugo Black

#30. Are you a Loyalist or a Patriot? Why, because being a God-fearing, self-reliant, freedom-loving American is a choice. Or we could be one of those government-dependent, Constitution-fearing socialists. That's the question, actually, the Founding Fathers asked. Are you a Loyalist or a Patriot?

Matt Shea

#31. Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic, expression of Americanism. Thus, the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God's help, it will continue to be.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

#32. Most gun control arguments miss the point. If all control boils fundamentally to force, how can one resist aggression without equal force? How can a truly "free" state exist if the individual citizen is enslaved to the forceful will of individual or organized aggressors? It cannot.

Tiffany Madison

#33. [Our Constitution] is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.

Patrick Henry

#34. Demonstrators for a government takeover of medicine have a right to discuss their demands, but no right to enact these demands ... 'Rights, as our founding fathers conceived them, are not claims to economic goods, but freedoms of action.

Ilana Mercer

#35. When you can't do any housecleaning because everything that goes on is a damned secret, then we're on our way to something the Founding Fathers didn't have in mind. Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix.

Harry S. Truman

#36. We have seen a central government promote the power of labor-union bosses, and in turn be supported by that power, until it has become entirely too much a government of and for one class, which is exactly what our Founding Fathers wanted most to prevent.

Robert W. Welch Jr.

#37. The Founding Fathers envisioned a federal government that trusts its people with their money and freedom, outlining this limited, non-intrusive federal government in ... the Constitution, leaving the other powers to people ... or to the states.

Milton Friedman

#38. Two hundred years ago, our Founding Fathers gave us a democracy. It was based upon the simple, yet noble, idea that government derives its validity from the consent of the governed.

Paul Tsongas

#39. The founding fathers, whose infinite wisdom gave us a Constitution and form of government well nigh perfect, located the seat of that government in a stinking, steaming swamp.

Mark Leibovich

#40. The Tea Party is simply a loose description of local activism driven by Americans who want smaller government and more self-reliance. That sounds like what the Founding Fathers had in mind, does it not?

Bill O'Reilly