John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams 1775: “Liberty once lost is lost forever.”
My Dear I have received your very agreable Favours of June 22d. and 25th. They contain more particulars than any Letters I had before received from any Body. It is not at all surprizing to me that the wanton, cruel, and infamous Conflagration of Charlestown, the Place of your Fathers Nativity, should afflict him. Let him know that I sincerely condole with him, on that melancholly ...
Thomas Jefferson: “We are Reduced to the Alternative of Choosing an Unconditional Submission to Tyranny, or Resistance by Force. The Latter is our Choice!”
The Continental Congress issued A Declaration by the Representatives of the United Colonies of North-America, Now Met in Congress at Philadelphia, Setting Forth the Causes and Necessity of Their Taking Up Arms. This was written by Thomas Jefferson and Pennsylvania lawyer John Dickinson. In response to England sending soldiers to "restore order" in the colonies, Jefferson wrote: We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission ...
Congress Approves General George Washington as the new Commander in Chief
Congress approved the choice of Washington as the new commander in chief, who then read a letter of acceptance. ‘Mr. President, tho’ I am truly sensible of the high honour done me in this appointment, yet I feel distress from the consciousness that my abilities and Military experience may not be equal to the extensive and important Trust,’ he said. ‘However, as the Congress desires, I ...
Patrick Henry Gives his ‘Give me Liberty, or Give me Death’ Speech
On March 23, 1775, less than a month before the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Patrick Henry addressed the House of Burgesses in Richmond, Virginia. He gave a speech that has been remembered popularly as the “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech. Although Henry’s discourse was not recorded at the time (partially because Henry delivered it extemporaneously), Henry’s biographer, William Wirt, later gathered testimony ...
Quote: “When an Army is Sent to Enforce Laws, it is Always an Evidence that… they are Oppressive”
A South Carolina newspaper essay, reprinted in Virginia, urged that any law that had to be enforced by the military was necessarily illegitimate: When an Army is sent to enforce Laws, it is always an Evidence that either the Law makers are conscious that they had no clear and indisputable right to make those Laws, or that they are bad [and] oppressive. Wherever the People themselves ...
Ben Franklin: “…the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.”
Benjamin Franklin on the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, written November 29, 1766: "I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." ...
Ben Franklin: “Thou abhorrest in Thy creatures treachery and deceit, malice, revenge, Intemperance and every other hurtful Vice…”
Benjamin Franklin in his 'Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion', November 20, 1728: "It is that particular wise and good God, who is the Author and Owner of our system, that I propose for the Object of my praise and adoration. For I conceive that He has in Himself some of those passions He has planted in us, and that, since He has given us ...
Benjamin Franklin: “Whoever would Overthrow the Liberty of a Nation must Begin by Subduing the Freeness of Speech.”
Silence Dogood, No. 8 Printed in The New-England Courant, July 9, 1722. On June 11 the Courant had insinuated that the Massachusetts authorities were not making proper exertions to capture a pirate vessel reported to be off the coast.3 Exasperated by this “High Affront,” the latest of many, the General Court the next day ordered James Franklin to be confined in jail for the remainder of the ...
Benjamin Franklin: “Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.”
"Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech." - The New England Courant, July 9, 1722 ...
