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Famous Quotes On Liberty

"You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or
restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe."

John Adams,
Second President of the United States


"The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."

John Jay, 1st Chief Justice
United States supreme Court, 1789


"The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts."

Samuel Chase, U.S. supreme Court Justice,
1796, Signer of the unanimous Declaration


"The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact."

Oliver Wendell Holmes,
U.S. supreme Court Justice, 1902


"The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided."

Harlan F. Stone, 12th Chief Justice
U.S. supreme Court, 1941


"The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard
instructions of the judge ["judge", referee]."

U.S.vs Dougherty, 473 F 2nd 113, 1139, (1972)


"All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution [Bill of Rights] are null and void."

Marbury vs Madison, 5 US (2 Cranch) 137, 174, 176, (1803)


"Where rights secured by the Constitution [Bill of Rights] are involved, there can be no rule
making or legislation which would abrogate them."

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Miranda vs Arizona, 384 US 436 p. 491.


"An unconstitutional [unbillofrightable] act is not law; it confers no right; it imposes no duties;
affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it
had never been passed."

Norton vs Shelby County118 US 425 p.442


"The general rule is that an unconstitutional [unbillofrightable] statute, though having the form
and the name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose;
since unconstitutionality [unbillofrightability] dates from the time of its enactment, and not
merely from the date of the decision so branding it.

No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional [unbillofrightable] law and no courts are bound to
enforce it."

16th American Jurisprudence 2d, Section 177
late 2nd, Section 256


"You have a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as
the fact in controversy."

State of Georgia vs. Brailsford, et al, 3 Dall 1


"Government is established for the protection of the weak against the strong. This is the
principal, if not the sole motive for the establishment of all legitimate government. It is only the
weaker party that lose their liberties, when a government becomes oppressive. The stronger
party, in all governments are free by virtue of their superior strength. They never oppress
themselves. Legislation is the work of the stronger party; and if, in addition to the sole power of
legislation, they have the sole power of determining what legislation shall be enforced, they have
all power in their hands, and the weaker party are the subjects of an absolute government. Unless
the weaker party have a veto, they have no power whatever in the government and...no liberties.
The trial by jury is the only institution that gives the weaker party any veto power upon the
power of the stronger. Consequently it is the only institution that gives them any effective voice
in the government, or any guaranty against oppression."

Lysander Spooner on the Trial by Jury



"The JURY has an unreviewable and unreversible power...to acquit in disregard of the
instructions on the law given by the trial judge ["judge", referee]..." (emphasis added)

U.S.vs Dougherty, 473 F 2nd 1113, 1139, (1972)
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"To embarrass justice by a multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by confidence in judges ["judges",
referees], are the opposite rocks on which all civil institutions have been wrecked."

Johnson - engraved in the Minnesota State Capitol
Outside the supreme Court Chambers


"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest
of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down
and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity
forget that ye were our countrymen."

Samuel Adams


"The Individual may stand upon his Constitutional [Bill of Rights, natural, common] rights as a
citizen [conscious being]. He is entitled to carry on his private business in his own way. His
power to contract is unlimited. He owes no duty to the State or to his neighbors to divulge his
business, or to open his doors to an investigation, so far as it may tend to incriminate him [bear
witness against himself]. He owes no duty to the State, since he receives nothing [of substance]
therefrom, beyond the protection of his life and property."

"His rights are such as existed by the Law of the Land (Common Law) long antecedent to the
organization of the State, and can only be taken from him by due process of law, and in
accordance with the Constitution [Bill of Rights]."

"Among his rights are a refusal to incriminate himself [bear witness against himself], and the
immunity of himself and his property from arrest or seizure except under [valid] warrant of the
law. He owes nothing to the public so long as he does not trespass upon their rights."

Hale Vs. Henkel., 201 U.S. 43 at 74 (1906)


"A State may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right secured by the Federal
Constitution [Bill of Rights]."

Murdock Vs. Pennsy., 319 U.S. 105.


Patrick Henry also knew that originally the JURY of PEERS was designed as a protection for
neighbors from outside governmental oppression. Henry states the following, "Why do we love
this trial by jury? Because it prevents the hand of oppression from cutting you off. This gives me
comfort - that, as long as I have existence, my neighbors will protect me."

(Elliot, 3:545, 546)

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JURY:...Petit Juries, consisting usually of twelve men, attend courts to try matters of fact in civil
causes, and to decide both the law and the fact in criminal prosecutions. The decision of a petit
jury is called a verdict..

American Dictonary of the English Language by
Noah Webster 1828


"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action, according to our will, within limits drawn around us by
the equal rights of others."

Thomas Jefferson


"Sometimes it is said that Man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then,
be trusted with the government of others?"

Thomas Jefferson, in his 1801 inaugural address


"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 all that is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."

Thomas Jefferson, in his 1801 inaugural address


"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's
purposes are beneficent... The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men
of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis


"What, then is law [government]? It is the collective organization of the individual right to
lawful defense."

Frederic Bastiat, The Law



"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty
nor safety."

Benjamin Franklin,
Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

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"By the bill of rights of England, a subject has a right to a trial by his peers. What is meant by his
peers? Those who reside near him, his neighbors, and who are well acquainted with his character
and situation in life."

Patrick Henry, (Elliot, The Debates in the
Several State Conventions on the
Adoption of the Federal Constitution, 3:579).


"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

Barry Goldwater (actually written by Karl Hess)


"I hold it, that a little rebellion [against false authority], now and then, is a good thing, and as
necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

Thomas Jefferson,
Letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787


"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall
grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional [Bill of Rights,
natural, common] right of amending it or their revolutionary [evolutionary] right to dismember it
or overthrow it."

Abraham Lincoln, 4 April 1861


"Guard with jealous attention the public [individual] liberty. Suspect every one who approaches
that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing [in Henry's time] will preserve it but downright force.
Whenever [in Henry's time] you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."

Patrick Henry, speech of June 5 1788



"Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole
apparatus of judges ["judges", referees], police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the
plunderers, and treats the victim - when he defends himself - as a criminal."

Frederic Bastiat, The Law
"If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would [be] the definition of a
peaceable revolution [evolution], if any such is possible. "

Henry David Thoreau

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"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized
community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or
moral, is not a sufficient warrant."

John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty", 1859


"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the
laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood;
if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes
that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow. Law is
defined to be a rule of action; but how can there be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?"

James Madison, Federalist Papers 62


"Every man has a property in his own person. This, nobody has any right to but himself. The
labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. The great and chief
end therefore, of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is
the preservation of their property.

John Locke,
A Treatise Concerning Civil Government



"The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First Amendment [Article] doesn't say
you have a right to speak out unless the government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the
Internet. The Second Amendment [Article] doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms
until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment [Article] doesn't say you have the
right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile of a
terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any
circumstances."

Harry Browne,
1996-2000-2004 uSA presidential candidate,
Libertarian Party


"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful
for them to do themselves."

John Locke, "A Treatise Concerning Civil Government"


"Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good."

Mohandas Gandhi

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"The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it
is commonly employed only by small children and great nations."

David Friedman

"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will
not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when
you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival.
There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it
is better to perish than to live as slaves."

Winston Churchill

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be
led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

H.L. Mencken


"Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good
one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent."

H. L. Mencken


"The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the
first place: legal plunder."

Frederick Bastiat


"The aggregate happiness of the society, which is best promoted by the practice of a virtuous
policy, is, or ought to be, the end of all government . . . ."

George Washington


"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

Thomas Jefferson



"A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you."

Ramsey Clark
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"Each of us has a natural right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. If every person
has the right to defend - even by force - his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows
that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights
constantly. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or
property of another individual, then the common force - for the same reason - cannot lawfully be
used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups."

Fredrick Bastiat


"The government was set to protect Man from criminals, and the Constitution [Bill of Rights]
was written to protect Man from the government."

Ayn Rand


"Truth is a mushy, hydra-headed word. Everyone disputes its meaning. Truth denotes a static
assertion that changes from person to person, opinion to opinion, culture to culture. Thus, truth is
a hollow, manipulating word that professional value destroyers promulgate in their attempts to
gain credibility for their deceptions and destructions."

Dr. Frank R. Wallace


"Honesty is a solid, indivisible word. No one disputes its meaning. Honesty denotes a volitional
process that is identical for every conscious being. Honesty is the exact thinking and acting
process that professional value destroyers must becloud in order to live off the value producers."


"Discard the Word Truth; Use the Word Honesty
Reject dishonest "a" points; act only on "the" point.
For justice, only one "the" point exists:
Who is the value destroyer; who is the value producer?
Nothing else matters - ever!"

Dr. Frank R. Wallace