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Government- Social Services & Welfare

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. .. A wise and frugal government ... shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. ... Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated. ... Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands?" --Thomas Jefferson.

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...." --James
Madison.

"I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity, [such spending] would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded." --President Franklin Pierce.

"I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan to indulge in benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds. .. I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution." --President Grover Cleveland.

"That the power to tax involves the power to destroy ... is not to be denied." --John Marshall

"The left always focuses its attention on dividing wealth -- rather than producing it -- and they do so because of their love affair with government power. Bureaucrats can work to apportion riches in a manner they deem fair, but government never produces the riches in the first place -- only private enterprise can do that. --Michael Medved

"When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income." --Plato

"Liberals are constitutionally unable to understand that every tax represents a transfer of power and freedom from the people to the government." --Linda Bowles

"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul." --G. B. Shaw.

 

Constitutional Republic-
I believe that our Founders did NOT necessarily trust the majority and that their comments and the principles they espoused in the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights served to guard against when the majority is wrong and to encourage the majority to espouse those noble principles.
Approx. 2/3 of the citizens in 1776 either did not want to go to war with Britain (1/3) or were afraid to (1/3), leaving only about 1/3 who did support independence to one degree or another.
The revolutionary army reached a peak of approx. 20,000 and lost all their battles. By the time they were reduced to 2,000 (mostly through dissertions) they were on the verge of being totally defeated and the vast majority were very young soldiers, Gen. Washington inspired them and then they began winning battles.
There never was a majority in favor of revolution UNTIL after the war was won and even then there were still a lot of doubters.
My point is that our Founders never really had confidence in the majority, but they knew that the only way that any govt. could be sucessful is IF the majority were righteous. Therefore, they led the way and set the example and tried to inspire others to follow, when they created our constitutional republic, hoping that the majority would get on board and repent of their passiveness.
Just like our Founders wishful thinking that "all men are created equal" they wished that eventually "we the people" would become righteous and capable enough to support our constitutional republic.
Ben Thompson