"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to
Samuel Kercheval, 1816
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it."
--Thomas Paine,
The Crisis, No. 4, 1777
“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
"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm."
--James Madison