Founders

John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and of course George Washington are some of the Founders of this great nation. How, are these men and all that joined them any different than the men and women that serve public office today? Is it because they happen to be permanently etched in the stone of history, because they founded the United States of America and that’s it?

Over the past years, especially through the start and present of the Obama administration, I have heard statements being made about the Founding Fathers, the Constitution and everything they set up for us. The statements I’m referring to are ones that want to say the Founding Fathers are irrelevant and obsolete just like the Constitution. Some ask why we should let men from two hundred years ago run, change and or influence today’s world? That kind of question has been asked about the Constitution as well.

I wonder how people can say and ask these kinds of things, and be okay with themselves. This shows me that there is a large lack of understanding and knowledge of our history and this is why so many people comment like this. Yet I cannot place 100% of the blame on them. A large percentage of the blame needs to be placed on the education system and the type of government we have today. Discussing the education system and current government will be discussed often in my blog posts.

The Founding Fathers were ahead of their time, when they created our nation, and the ideals that were and still are woven into our nation’s fabric and their ideas and actions are deemed well ahead of their time by known historians. Our Founding Fathers not only won the freedom for our nation, wrote and implemented near perfect documents to have our nation run by, but also gave us warnings concerning government growth and or overreach, not including all the foresight they gave us on all kind of things if allowed, would corrupt our nation. To keep this short, as this is more of a ‘What to come’ blog post and to not overload anyone, here are quotes from some of our Founders and these quotes are going to show you some of what they were warning us about and giving us foresight to protect ourselves and keep ourselves free.

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.” – Patrick Henry

“… God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy (a lack of energy and enthusiasm), the forerunner of death to the public liberty… And what country can preserve its liberties, it its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? 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 Papers, 334 (C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950)

“A Constitution of government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” – John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, July 17, 1775

“A wise and frugal (sparing or economical with regard to money or food) government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise 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, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity (intense happiness).” – Thomas Jefferson, First inaugural address.

A couple of my favorite quotes by a Founding Father;
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin

“The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.” Benjamin Franklin