Politics has always, it seems, been a breeding ground for a wide variety of ideas, some more radical than others. Can you identify the radical or radicals who made the following statements? E-mail me at 4waystop@ixi.net or snail mail your best guess.
"A wise and frugal 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."
"If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we would soon want for bread."
"No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap."
"Our liberty depends on freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."
"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliance with none."
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then,be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."
"The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills."
"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
"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."
Lodestone