George Washington Quotes
This you may … rely on, that none of them will ever submit to the loss of those valuable rights & privileges which are essential to the happiness of every free State, and without which, Life, Liberty & property are rendered totally insecure.
Mackenzie was a British officer with whom Washington had become friends in the French & Indian War and in this letter, Washington was trying to explain the seriousness of the Boston rebellion for Britain.
George Washington, 1732-1799, 1st President of the United States (VA), Letter regarding the Boston protesters to Robert Mackenzie, October 9, 1774
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
See {587703} for a similar statement by a Supreme Court Justice.
He had been a Congressman before assuming the Presidency. Civil rights was a major subject of debate after the Civil War. One major issue was that of citizenship itself. Many contended that Americans were citizens of a state and dependant on the state for the protection of civil rights. However, the extent to which the Federal government could and should be the guarantor of citizenship issues was in dispute. Today with the issue settled in favor of Federal preeminence, it is hard to realize that this was very unsettled at one point in history. Garfield was one of those leading the effort for more Federal involvement and control.
This statement summarized what had been a basic principle of American Law as derived from English law. See {587704}.
He was considered Massachusetts’ greatest Colonial orator.
This is probably the first known use of the Bill of Rights phrase in the English language. For the earliest American use, see Edward Rutledge.
In many countries, the king received all land and most property upon the death of a landowner.
Hayward claimed that Wilson was the first American President who ever criticized the American Constitution. Many do not agree as Madison and Jefferson in part, along with most other Americans, found the Constitution so wanting that it was ratified only on condition of the passage of the Bill of Rights. Jackson, was distressed by the limitations on the President and many others had their objections, but Wilson, before he became a politician was a prominent academic political scientist and wrote voluminously and had an intellectual following so his criticism was not considered so “political” as others.
This was written and adopted by Vermont a decade before the United States Constitution the ideas for which were in existence in America before the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
Hopkins was complaining about the fact that England could tax the colonies and thereby take their property without their consent made the American colonists in the “miserable condition of slaves.” Essentially the fundamental complaint of the Americans was this and in a decade it would erupt as the American Revolution. At the same time, Hopkins was a slave owner and yet saw nothing wrong with that.
It was drafted by John Adams. 9 Years later the French in their Revolution used the first clause in their Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen—See Quotation 602404 For an opposite point of view see Quotation 635927.
The Congress was encouraging all men volunteer for the military and defend the new nation now that the British were landing in force to put down the revolution. By modern language standards, this is a little “over the top” but it shows not only the passion felt by the Congress but the importance they placed on the struggle.
George Washington was the first President of the United States (1789-97), the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He presided over the convention that drafted the current United States Constitution and during his lifetime was called the "father of his country".
