I Will Defend the Constitution

* The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

* To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

* The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

* Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free.

* To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

* A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.

* I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.