A little civics lesson from the Founding Fathers

Here’s a little civics lesson from the Founding Fathers for the insufferable Madame Pelousy and the Manchurian Moonbat (hint, they would be tried for treason in those saner times):

“On every question of construction [of the Constitution], let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
— Thomas Jefferson

With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.
- James Madison

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”
— Daniel Webster

“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
- James Madison

“Since the general civilization of mankind, 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 usurpation”
- James Madison

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny”
- James Madison

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson

“In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
- Thomas Jefferson

If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
- Thomas Jefferson

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

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
-Thomas Jefferson

“The Tenth Amendment is the foundation of the Constitution.”
- Thomas Jefferson

If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare… they may appoint teachers in every state… The powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.
- James Madison

“When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.”
— Thomas Jefferson

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.
-Thomas Jefferson