“There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.” – Adam Smith

“There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party.…

“The Senate and House of Representatives form mutual checks on each other, and the President on both.  Cato’s apprehensions of Monarchy are chimerical, in the highest degree; and calculated in the same manner as what he says of the rich oppressing and grinding the poor – to catch the attention of the unwary multitude.” “Americanus” …

Treasures of knowledge, aquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may behappily applied in the Establisment of our forms of Goernment; the free cultivation of Letters, the unbounded extenstion of Commerce, the progressive refinement of Manners, the…

“If I say to you the king died and then the queen died, that’s a sequence of events. If I say the king died and the queen died of grief, that’s a story.” Mr. McCullough, paraphrasing E.M. Forster Why History Will Repay Your Love

There are two fundamental motives which inspire human action. The first and most important, to which all else is subordinate, is that of righteousness. There is that in mankind, stronger than all else, which requires them to do right. When that requirement is satisfied, the next motive is that of gain. These are the moral…

Tyranny of all kinds is to be abhor’d, whether it be in the hands of one, or of the few, or of the many. James Otis, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, 1764