General Welfare Quotes - Page 2

• Of all forms of government and society, those of free men and women are in many respects the most brittle. They give the fullest freedom for activities of private persons and groups who often identify their own interests, essentially selfish, with the general welfare.

  Dorothy Thompson

  Selfish, Men, Giving

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• Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, of course, lays out the delegated, enumerated, and therefore limited powers of Congress. Only through a deliberate misreading of the general welfare and commerce clauses of the Constitution has the federal government been allowed to overreach its authority and extend its tendrils into every corner of civil society.

  Ed Crane

  Government, Constitution, Welfare

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• Though liberty is established by law, we must be vigilant, for liberty to enslave us is always present under that very liberty. Our Constitution speaks of the "general welfare of the people." Under that phrase all sorts of excesses can be employed by lusting tyrants to make us bondsmen.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Tyrants, Law, People

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• There is no other planning for freedom and general welfare than to let the market system work.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Planning, Welfare

  Ludwig Von Mises, Murray Newton Rothbard (1980). “Planning for freedom, and sixteen other essays and addresses”, Libertarian Press, Incorporated

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• The other General Welfare Clause is in the first of the authorities given to the Congress and it's not a grant, it's a restriction. By which I mean it doesn't say Congress can legislate for the general welfare, it means that everything Congress must do has to enhance the general welfare of the United States of America. It can't grant things to individuals, it can only legislate for the government.

  Andrew Napolitano

  Mean, America, Government

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• Patriotism is the intelligent appreciation that one's own welfare is inseparably connected with the general welfare and that to prosper personally one must intelligently do his utmost to maintain the general prosperity.

  Julius Sterling Morton

  Appreciation, Intelligent, Patriotism

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• Thomas Jefferson explained, Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated. .. If Congress can determine what constitutes the general welfare and can appropriate money for its advancement, where is the limitation to carrying into execution whatever can be effected by money?.

  Bill Drayton

  Advancement, Execution, Welfare

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• First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.

  Michael Sandel

  Good Life, Rights, Justice

  Michael J. Sandel (2005). “Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics”, p.151, Harvard University Press

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• To take a single step beyond the boundaries specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to definition.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Political, Fields

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.556

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• 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

  Wise, Men, Hands

  A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, Chapter 82, 1779.

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• I imagine an America that can actually change. That we become a nation that prospers again but without pillaging the resources of nations that make their people hate us. That we become a nation that, as the constitution says in its preamble, its very first paragraph, 'promotes the general welfare' of its people.

  Richard Schiff

  Hate, America, People

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please . . . . Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It [the Constitution] was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Mean, Evil, Judging

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• The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

  Joseph Story

  Government, People, United States

  Joseph Story (1851). “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States, Before the Adoption of the Constitution”, p.296

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• I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power not longer susceptible of any definition.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, People, Fields

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private : Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts, Deposited in the Department of State”, p.556

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• The benefit of one is the benefit of all, and the neglect of one is the neglect of all.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Benefits, Neglect

  Calvin Coolidge (1924). “Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings”

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• The natural tendency of the state is inflation. This statement will shock those accustomed to viewing the state as a committee of the whole nation ardently dispensing the general welfare, but I think it nonetheless true.

  Murray Rothbard

  Thinking, Welfare, Natural

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• In a democracy the responsibility for the Government's economic policies, which so affect the economy, normally rests with the elected representative of the people: in our case, with the President and the Congress. If these two follow economic policies inimical to the general welfare, they are accountable to the people for their actions on election day. With Federal Reserve independence, however, a body of men exist who control one of the most powerful levers moving the economy and who are responsible to no one.

  Wright Patman

  Powerful, Moving, Responsibility

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• The true basis of morality is utility; that is, the adaptation of our actions to the promotion of the general welfare and happiness; the endeavour so to rule our lives that we may serve and bless mankind.

  Annie Besant

  May, Our Actions, Morality

  Annie Wood Besant (2011). “Annie Besant: An Autobiography”, p.154, Cambridge University Press

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• It may not be improper, however, to remark two consequences, evidently flowing from an extension of the federal power to every subject falling within the idea of the "general welfare." One consequence must be, to enlarge the sphere of discretion allotted to the executive magistrate... The other consequence would be, that of an excessive augmentation of the offices, honors, and emoluments, depending on the executive will.

  James Madison

  Fall, Ideas, Two

  "The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution".

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• But the older he grew and the more intimately he came to know his brother, the oftener the thought occurred to him that the power of working for the general welfare – a power of which he felt himself entirely destitute – was not a virtue but rather a lack of something: not a lack of kindly honesty and noble desires and tastes, but a lack of the power of living, of what is called heart – the aspiration which makes a man choose one out of all the innumerable paths of life that present themselves, and desire that alone.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Brother, Honesty, Heart

  Leo Tolstoy (2016). “The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Resurrection, The Death of Ivan Ilych, A Confession, The Cossacks, Correspondences with Gandhi, The Kreutzer Sonata, Fables and Stories for Childrenand Many More”, p.299, e-artnow

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• If you wish to prosper, let your customer prosper. When people have learned this lesson, everyone will seek his individual welfare in the general welfare. Then jealousies between man and man, city and city, province and province, nation and nation, will no longer trouble the world.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Men, Cities, People

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• Patriotism should be sought for and will be found in right living. No man can be a good Latter-day Saint and not be true to the best interests and general welfare of his country.

  Joseph Smith, Jr.

  Country, Men, Saint

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• We are attempting, by this Constitution, to abolish factions, and to unite all parties for the general welfare.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Party, Constitution, Welfare

  Alexander Hamilton (1962). “Papers”

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• The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Powerful, Exercise, Men

  Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge (2017). “The Complete Works of Theodore Roosevelt”, p.3154, Madison & Adams Press

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• For me, liberals are people who seek to use government to promote the general welfare.

  Douglas Massey

  Government, People, Use

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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