The following words are compiled in reflection of our nation’s founding, to be read as an editorial, plagiarized from our history. None of the following words are mine.

Proclaim liberty throughout the land…¹that all men are by nature equally free and independent² America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine providence on behalf of the human race.³ How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy! You will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.⁴ No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.⁵

Liberty without learning is always in peril…⁶ The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.⁷ Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual… but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.⁸ We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls.⁹

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness.¹⁰ We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights.¹¹ We dare not forget that we are the heirs of that first revolution.¹² What we need are critical lovers of America – patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it.¹³

No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant… they will sink under their own weight without the aid of foreign invaders.¹⁴ Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants.¹⁵ The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.¹⁶

Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance.¹⁷ Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master!¹⁸ Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.¹⁹ It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from his government. ²⁰

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.²¹ When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will … become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.²²

In recent years government at all levels has shown growing disrespect for the Constitution.²³ It would be a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their income.²⁴ [the government] has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.²⁵

When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.²⁶ If our country is worth dying for in time of war let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace.²⁷ These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman…. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.²⁸

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.²⁹ You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness.³⁰ Why stand we here idle?… 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!³¹

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.³² If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.³³ From every mountain side, let freedom ring.³⁴

1-Leviticus 25:10; 2-The Virginia Bill of Rights, June 12, 1776; 3-Ralph Waldo Emerson; 4-John Quincy Adams; 5-Douglas MacArthur; 6-John F. Kennedy; 7-John F. Kennedy; 8-Samuel Adams; 9-Robert J. McCracken; 10-Erma Bombeck; 11-Felix Frankfurter; 12-John F. Kennedy; 13-Hubert H. Humphrey; 14-Samuel Adams; 15-William Pitt; 16-James Madison;17-Woodrow Wilson; 18-Thomas Jefferson; 19-George Washington; 20-Thomas Paine; 21-Thomas Jefferson; 22-Thomas Jefferson; 23-Bob Barr; 24-Ben Franklin; 25-Declaration of Independence; 26-Thomas Jefferson; 27-Hamilton Fish; 28-Thomas Paine; 29-Franklin D. Roosevelt; 30-Ronald Reagan; 31-Patrick Henry; 32-John Quincy Adams; 33-Ronald Reagan; 34-Samuel F. Smith, “America”