The Founders of our country knew how precious liberty was. They risked their lives to obtain it. They themselves looked back in their history – a history of pilgrims risking their lives (and many dying) in order to have religious liberty. Americans have come from sturdy stock, and value liberty over life itself.
“A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on Earth.”
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, December 1787
Below are several dozen quotes. At the end is the famous “Massachusetts Liberty Song” composed in 1768.
Quotes
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Benjamin Franklin, Speech to the Pennsylvania Assembly, November 11, 1755
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”
Thomas Jefferson
“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.”
John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765
“Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.”
Benjamin Franklin, Maxims and Morals from Dr. Franklin, 1807
Quotes
“As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar perhaps singular. What do we mean by the revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.”
John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, August 24, 1815
““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 be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.”
Samuel Adams, Article in the Boston Gazette, October 14, 1771
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, December 19, 1776
“It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or of any number of men, at the entering into society to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights, when the grand end of civil government – from the very nature of its institution – is for the support, protection, and defense of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are life, liberty, and property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up an essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right of freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”
Samuel Adams
Quotes
“Is life so dear, or peaceful so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
Patrick Henry, Speech at the Virginia Convention
“Timid men… prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty.”
Thomas Jefferson to Philip Mazzei, April 24, 1796
“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.”
Edmund Burke, Speech at Country Meeting of Buckinghamshire, 1784
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Colonel William S. Smith, November 13, 1787
“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned — this is the sum of good government.”
– Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801
“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
– John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of the Government of the United States of America, 1787
The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of Liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.”
-Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835
“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington, May 27, 1788
“The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false reasoning, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator, to the whole human race; and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice.”
Alexander Hamilton, “The Farmer Refuted,” 1775
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”
Thomas Paine, The Crisis, 1777
“Political freedom includes in it every other blessing. All the pleasures of riches, science, virtue, and even religion itself derive their value from liberty alone. No wonder therefore wise and prudent legislators have in all ages been held in such great veneration; and no wonder too those illustrious souls who have employed their pens and sacrificed their lives in defense of liberty have met with such universal applause. Their reputations, like some majestic river which enlarges and widens as it approaches its parent ocean, shall become greater and greater through every age and outlive the ruins of the world itself.”
Benjamin Rush to Catharine Macaulay, January 18, 1769
“Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition.”
Edmund Burke, Second Speech on Conciliation with America, The Thirteen Resolution, March 22, 1775
“In every human breast, God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom; it is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance.”
Phyllis Wheatley, The Boston Post-Boy, 1774
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
James Madison, Address at the Virginia Convention, June 16, 1788
“I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than the means.”
John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776
“A settled plan to deprive the people of all the benefits, blessings, and ends of the contract, to subvert the fundamentals of the constitution, to deprive them of all share in making and executing laws, will justify a revolution.”
John Adams, Novanglus Papers, 1774
“If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.”
― Samuel Adams
“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.”
― Samuel Adams
“Nil desperandum, — Never Despair. That is a motto for you and me. All are not dead; and where there is a spark of patriotic fire, we will rekindle it.”
― Samuel Adams
“It does not take a majority to prevail … but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
― Samuel Adams
“The true object of loyalty is a good legal constitution, which, as it condemns every instance of oppression and lawless power, derives a certain remedy to the sufferer by allowing him to remonstrate his grievances, and pointing out methods of relief when the gentle arts of persuasion have lost their efficacy.”
― Samuel Adams
“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man….It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty… [who] mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, — to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves….The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people.”
― Samuel Adams
“The advocates for a despotic government, and non-resistance to the magistrate, employ reasons in favor of their systems drawn from a consideration of their tendency to promote public happiness.”
– Samuel Adams
The Massachusets Liberty Song – 1768
Come swallow your bumpers, ye tories, and roar,
That the sons of fair Freedom are hamper’d once more;
But know that no cut-throats our spirits can tame,
Nor a host of oppressors shall smother the flame.
In freedom we’re born, and, like sons of the brave,
We’ll never surrender,
But swear to defend her,
And scorn to survive, if unable to save.
Our grandsires, blest heroes! we’ll give them a tear,
Nor sully their honors, by stooping to fear;
Thro’ deaths and thro’ dangers, their trophies they won,
We dare be their rivals, nor will be outdone.
Let tyrants and minions presume to despise,
Encroach on our rights, and make freedom their prize:
The fruits of their rapine they never shall keep;
Tho’ vengeance may nod, yet how short is her sleep!
The tree, which proud Haman for Mordecai rear’d,
Stands recorded, that virtue endanger’d is spar’d,
That rogues whom no bonds and no laws can restrain,
Must be stript of their honors, and humbled again.
Our wives and our babes, still protected, shall know,
Those who dare to be free, shall for ever be so;
On these arms and these hearts they may safely rely,
For in freedom we’ll live, or like heroes we’ll die.
Ye insolent tyrants! who wish to enthrall
Ye minions, ye placemen, pimps, pensioners, all,
How short is your triumph! how feeble your trust !
Your honors must wither and nod to the dust.
When oppress’d and reproach’d, our king we implore,
Still firmly persuaded our rights he’ll restore;
When our hearts beat to arms, to defend a just right,
Our monarch rules there, and forbids us to fight.
Not the glitter of arms, nor the dread of a fray,
Could make us submit to their chains for a day;
Withheld by affection, on Britons we call, –
Prevent the fierce conflict which threatens your fall !
All ages shall speak, with amaze and applause,
Of the prudence we show in support of our cause;
Assur’d of our safety, a Brunswick still reigns,
Whose free loyal subjects are strangers to chains.
Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all !
To be free is to live, to be slaves is to fall;
Has the land such a dastard, as scorns not a lord,
Who dreads not a fetter much more than a sword.
In freedom we’re born, and, like sons of the brave,
We’ll never surrender,
But swear to defend her,
And scorn to survive, if unable to save.
Let’s make something together.
Liberty and the Pursuit 