...Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrendered their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.
John AdamsAs the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and the blessing of Almighty God, and the national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him.
John AdamsThe question before the human race is, Whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether Priests and Kings shall rule it by fictitious Miracles? Or, in other words, whether authority is originally in the People? Or whether it has descended for 1800 Years in a succession of Popes and Bishops, or brought down from Heaven by the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove, in a Phial of holy Oil?
John AdamsThe real fabric of American society is not all those flags you see on people's cars...it's in the Bill of Rights and in our constitutional form of government.
John Adams