"'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world...." George Washington (1796)
"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto." Thomas Jefferson (1799)
"I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government [to be] peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none...." Thomas Jefferson (1801)
"Why stand we here idle?" implored Patrick Henry in his famous March 23, 1775 speech. "What is it that gentlement wish? What would they have?
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Patrick Henry (1775)
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories." - Thomas Jefferson
"It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn." George Washington
"The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities."Theodore Roosevelt
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."President James Madison (1751-1836)
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
