“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
—  Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence, 3rd President of the U. S.

“A democracy is a volcano, which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption, and carry desolation in their way.”
— Fisher Ames (1758-1808) Founding Father and framer of the First Amendment to the Constitution

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.”
— John Adams (1797-1801) Second President of the United States and Patriot

“Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state, it is very subjet to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”
— John Witherspoon (1722-1794) Educator, Economist, Minister, Writer & Founding Father

“We have seen the tumults of democracy terminate, in France, as they have everywhere terminated, in despotism.”
— Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816) Statesman, Diplomat, writer of the final draft of the Constitution

“Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they, therefore, who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure...are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.”
— Charles Carroll (1737-1832) Founding Father and Leader from Maryland

“As piety and virtue support the honor and happiness of every community, they are peculiarly requisite in a free government. Virtue is the spirit of a republic; for where all power is derived from the people, all depends on their good disposition. If they are impious ... all is lost.”
— Samuel Cooper (1725-1783) Pastor of the Brattle Street Church Boston, Pastor of  John Hancock, James Bowdoin, and John Adams

“That the only foundation for a useful education, in a republic, is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty; and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”
— Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) Founding Father& signer of the Declaration of Independence

"In democracy … there are commonly tumults and disorders … Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth.”
— Noah Webster (1758-1843)  Father of the Dictionary & American Patriot

“All such men are, or ought to be, agreed, that simple governments are despotisms; and of all despotisms, a democracy, though the least durable, is the most violent.”
— Fisher Ames (1758-1808) Founding Father and framer of the First Amendment to the Constitution

“Republicanism is not the phantom of a deluded imagination. On the contrary, laws, under no form of government, are better supported, liberty and property better secured, or happiness more effectually dispensed to mankind.”
— George Washington (1732-1799) Father of the Country, 1st President of the United States

“To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions; in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom [& liberty], and approximate the miseries of complete despotism. All efforts to destroy the foundations of our holy religion, ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness. Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present Republican forms of government, and all the blessings [God given] which flow from them, must fall with them.”
— Jedediah Morse (1761-1826) Father of American Geography & Educator, “Election Sermon” given at Charlestown, MA, April 25, 1799

"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind."
— Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence, 3rd President of the U. S.

“The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness, which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be, liberty.”
— Fisher Ames (1758-1808) Founding Father and framer of the First Amendment to the Constitution

“If they proceed in it (removing the Bible from schools), they will do more in half a century in extirpating our religion than Bolingbroke or Voltaire could have effected in a thousand years. …I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them. We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this divine book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and all those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of republicanism."
— Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) Founding Father& signer of the Declaration of Independence

"As riches increase and accumulate in few hands, as luxury prevails in society, virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard. This is the real disposition of human nature; it is what neither the honorable member nor myself can correct. It is a common misfortunate that awaits our State constitution, as well as all others."
— Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) Lawyer, Secretary of the Treasury & Secretary of State

“The Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Dutch, all lost their public spirit, their republican principles and habits, and their republican forms of government when they lost the modesty and domestic virtues of their women. The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families. In vain are schools, academies, and universities instituted, if loose principles and licentious habits are impressed upon children in their earliest years. The mothers are the earliest and most important instructors of youth. The vices and examples of the parents can not be concealed from the children. The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity, and humanity.”
— John Adams (1797-1801) Second President of the United States and Patriot

“Democracy: The worship of jackals by jackasses.”
— Henry L. Mencken (1880-1956) American Writer

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
— Henry L. Mencken (1880-1956) American Writer

 “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) Third President of the United States