[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.
James Madison, speech in the House of Representatives, January 10, 1794
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." --James Madison
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress. ... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America." --James Madison
"I think we have more machinery of government than is
necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the
industrious." --Thomas Jefferson
Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776
The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security.
James Madison, Federalist No. 45, January 26, 1788
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.
James Madison, Federalist No. 45, January 26, 1788
The house of representatives...can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.
James Madison, Federalist No. 57, February 19, 1788
It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.
James Madison, to an unidentified correspondent, 1833
Most bad government has grown out of too much government. Thomas Jefferson
Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.
James Madison, Federalist No. 39, January 1788
"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny."
- Thomas Jefferson (attributed to Jefferson, by his contemporaries)
The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first. Thomas Jefferson
"The Tenth Amendment is the foundation of the Constitution."
- Thomas Jefferson
But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm... But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.
James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788
Freedom is lost gradually from an uninterested, uninformed, and uninvolved people. ...
Thomas Jefferson
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin
Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.
John Adams, Defense of the Constitutions, 1787
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin (on the title page of An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania - 1759)
There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
James Madison, speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 16, 1788
The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.
Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June 17, 1788
If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 33, January 3, 1788
The states must be considered as essential component parts of the union; and the idea of sacrificing the former to the latter is totally inadmissible.
Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June 24, 1788
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, January 3, 1788
Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.
The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 22, December 14, 1787
The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 21, 1787
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
Controlling national debt
"But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years." --Thomas Jefferson
There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable. Sir, in my opinion, it would be hazarding the public faith in a manner contrary to every idea of prudence.
James Madison, Speech in Congress, April 22, 1790
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