Abraham Lincoln on Losing Freedom

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Lincoln on Mercy vs. Justice

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.  (Abraham Lincoln)

FDR on Individual Freedom

True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.  (Franklin Delano Roosevelt)

Jefferson on Liberty

Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?  That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?  (Thomas Jefferson)

Jefferson on Conscience

The true fountains of evidence are the head and heart of every rational and honest man.  It is there nature has written her moral laws, and where every man may read them for himself.  (Thomas Jefferson)

Benjamin Franklin on Political Compromise

It was understood by the framers of the Constitution of the United States that it did not represent a perfect instrument in every respect. Advocating for ratification of the original Constitution, Franklin said,"The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good." (Benjamin Franklin)

John Adams on Understanding

If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?  (John Adams)

Ronald Reagan on Accountability

We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.  (Ronald Reagan)

Lincoln on Consent of the Governed

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent. (Abraham Lincoln)

Jefferson on Outlawing Slavery

Whatever may have been the circumstances which influenced our forefathers to permit the introduction of personal bondage into any part of these states, and to participate in the wrongs committed on an unoffending quarter of the globe, we may rejoice that such circumstances, and such a sense of them, exist no longer. It is honorable in the nation at large that their Congress availed themselves of the first practicable moment for arresting the progress of this great moral and political error. (Thomas Jefferson)

Thomas Jefferson on Corrupt Government

In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate, and improve.  (Thomas Jefferson)

Thomas Jefferson on Liberty of Worship

Among the most inestimable of our blessings is that liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government, and yet proved by our experience to be its best support.  (Thomas Jefferson)

Jefferson on Honesty

Celebrating honesty, Jefferson observed,

The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. (Thomas Jefferson)