What our founders said.

[2ndAmendment]

"Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favours or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of Commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with Powers so disposed; in order to give trade a stable course." -- George Washington (Farewell Address, 19 September 1796) Reference: Maxims of George Washington, Schroeder, ed. (71)

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[2ndAmendment]

"I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce, and hold it as a truth, that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic - it is also a truth, that if industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out." -- James Madison (speech to the Congress, 9 April 1789)

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[2ndAmendment]

"If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?" -- Benjamin Franklin (to Thomas Paine, Date Unknown) Reference: Original Intent, Barton (297); original The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Sparks, ed., vol. 10 (281-282)

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[2ndAmendment]

"[T]here is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of [slavery]." -- George Washington (letter to Robert Morris, 12 April 1786) Reference: Washington's Maxims, 157.

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[2ndAmendment]

"It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. But it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest of errors, by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise." -- Alexander Hamilton (speech to the Ratifying Convention of New York, June 1788) Reference: The Works of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Cabot Lodge, ed., II, 42.

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[2ndAmendment]

"No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass." --George Washington (letter to Benjamin Lincoln, 29 June 1788) Reference: George Washington: A Collection, W.B. Allen, ed. (403)

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[2ndAmendment]

"In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable. I am myself a nail-maker." -- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Jean Nicolas Démeunier, 29 April
1795) Reference: Jefferson: Writings, Peterson ed., Library of America (1028)

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[2ndAmendment]

If, for instance, the president is required to do any act, he is not only authorized, but required, to decide for himself, whether, consistently with his constitutional duties, he can do the act." -- Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833) Reference: Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 124.

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[2ndAmendment]

"[H]onesty will be found on every experiment, to be the best and only true policy; let us then as a Nation be just." -- George Washington (Circular letter to the States, 14 June 1783) Reference: George Washington: A Collection, W.B. Allen, ed. (244)

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[2ndAmendment]

"So that the executive and legislative branches of the national government depend upon, and emanate from the states. Every where the state sovereignties are represented; and the national sovereignty, as such, has no representation." -- Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833) Reference: Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 191.

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[2ndAmendment]

"[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." -- James Madison (speech in the House of Representatives, 10 January 1794) Reference: Elliot's Debates,

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[2ndAmendment]

"The state governments have a full superintendence and control over the immense mass of local interests of their respective states, which connect themselves with the feelings, the affections, the municipal institutions, and the internal arrangements of the whole population. They possess, too, the immediate administration of justice in all cases, civil and criminal, which concern the property, personal rights, and peaceful pursuits of their own citizens." -- Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833) Reference: Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 191.

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[2ndAmendment]

"But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States." -- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 32, 3 January 1788) Reference: The Federalist

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[2ndAmendment]

"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) Reference: The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, Thompson, ed. (28)

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[2ndAmendment]

"Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof - Lev. XXV, v. X"

Inscription on the Liberty Bell, from Leviticus 25:10

Reference: TK

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[2ndAmendment]

"The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institution may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances be made subservient to the vilest purposes. Should, hereafter, those incited by the lust of power and prompted by the Supineness or venality of their Constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to shew, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting an inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchm[en]t can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other."-- George Washington (fragments of the Draft First Inaugural Address, April 1789)

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[2ndAmendment]

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion; what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." -- Thomas Jefferson to William S. Smith regarding the Shays Rebellion, 1787. ME 6:372

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[2ndAmendment]

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” -- Thomas Jefferson, (The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, p. 334, 1950)

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[2ndAmendment]

"Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reeactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free." -- Thomas Jefferson (letter to John Wayles Eppes, 24 June 1813) Reference: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Library of Congress, American Memory Collection

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[2ndAmendment]

"I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that is not the guide in expounding it, there may be no security " -- James Madison (letter to Henry Lee, 25 June 1824) Reference: Advice to my Country, Mattern, 34-35.

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