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The rights of Englishmen are derived from God, not from king or Parliament, and would be secured by the study of history, law, and tradition.

John Adams

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John Adams
Age: 90 †
Born: 1735
Born: October 19
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
2Nd U.S. President
Diplomat
Lawyer
Political Philosopher
Politician
Statesperson
Braintree
Massachusetts
President Adams
J. Adams
President John Adams
Law
Derived
History
Parliament
Would
King
Tradition
Kings
Liberty
Study
Secured
Rights
Englishmen

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I wish I could lay down beside her and die too.
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What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?
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We hold that each man is the best judge of his own interest.
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Public business must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other. If wise man decline, others will not if honest man refuse it, others will not.
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The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
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All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
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Oh! the wisdom, the foresight and the hindsight and the rightsight and the leftsight, the northsight and the southsight, and the eastsight and the westsight that appeared in that august assembly.
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[L]iberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.
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There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
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I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
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Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws.
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I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.
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Negro Slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude. I am therefore utterly averse to the admission of Slavery into the Missouri Territory, and heartily wish that every Constitutional measure may be adopted for the preservation of it.
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The only way to form an army to be confided in, was a systematic discipline, by which means all men may be made heroes.
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If we take a survey of the greatest actions...in the world...we shall find the authors of them all to have been persons whose Brains had been shaken out of their natural position.
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Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society.
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Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
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Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.
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My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone!
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I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by. The definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory.
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