John Jay Quotes

It was once a fundamental maxim that every subject had the same right to his life, liberty, property, and the law that the King had to his crown; and 'tis yet, I venture to say, as much as a crown is worth, to deny the subject his law, which is his birthright.

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing.

Moral principles of liberty that endow a person with the right to claim and acquire property at the same time oblige that person to respect every other person’s equal right to do the same.

I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take away

God himself has no right to be a tyrant.

Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law.

Power over men is itself a satisfaction, besides providing opportunity to better one's circumstances with a minimum of exertion. Hence, the lust for power increases with its enjoyment and restraint is added to restraint. The government instituted to prevent men from transgressing one another's equal rights thus tends to become a transgressor of the rights of all. The injustice is far more oppressive than anyone man can do unto another, and the interests of freedom can be served only by restraint of government.

The great questions that have troubled the country are about the authority of the magistrates and the liberty of the people.

An owner’s right to exclude others from his property is the means by which he can avoid “bads” from happening: events that will lower the value of his property. By means of an unceasing flood of redistributive legislation, the democratic state has worked relentlessly not only to strip its citizens of all arms (weapons) but also to strip domestic property owners of their right of exclusion, thereby robbing them of much of their personal and physical protection.

The inhabitants of the English colonies in North-America … are entitled to life, liberty and property: and they have never ceded to any foreign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.

Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.

The law may do what it will with the owner of property, its just power will still attach to the cent.

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another.

The magistrate has the right to enforce what he thinks, and he who is conscious of the truth has a right to suffer.

There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

The exercise of the power of eminent domain is against common right. It subverts the usual attributes of the ownership of property.

In all questions between a government and an individual the presumption in every Englishman's mind is that the government is in the wrong.

The consent of the governed" is more than a safeguard against ignorant tyrants: it is an insurance against benevolent despots as well.

Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark.

Freedom from absolute, arbitrary power is so necessary to, and closely joined with, a man's preservation, that he cannot part with it but by what forfeits his preservation and life together

We have seen the Legislatures in our own Country deprive the Citizen of Life, of Liberty & of Property. We have seen Laws of Attainder, Punishment and Confiscation

Every citizen has, under the law, a sacred and inviolable right to personal liberty and to the possession of his goods

I desire to secure every privilege and every right to every citizen in the United States…. I understand the amendment ... to authorize Congress to establish uniform laws throughout the United States upon the subject named, the protection of life, liberty, and property. I am unwilling that Congress shall have any such power

… there is no such dichotomy as “human rights” versus “property rights.” No human rights can exist without property rights.