Magistrates Quotes - Page 4

• Everyone that gets an authority into his hands tyrannizes over others; as many husbands, parents, masters, magistrates, that live after the flesh do carry themselves like oppressing lords over such as are under them, not knowing that their wives, children, servants, subjects are their fellow creatures, and hath an equal privilege to share them in the blessing of liberty.

  Gerrard Winstanley

  Children, Husband, Blessing

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• But who is to decide who truly fears the Lord? The magistrate has no power to enforce religious demands. The laws of the First Table of the Ten Commandments are not regulations for a civil society or a political order. They belong to the realm of religion, not politics.

  Roger Williams

  Religious, Order, Law

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• The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate.

  John Locke

  Soul, Atheism, Care

  John Locke, John W. Yolton (1977). “The Locke Reader: Selections from the Works of John Locke with a General Introduction and Commentary”, p.246, CUP Archive

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• One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate; but he must die a man. The bed of death brings every human being to his pure individuality, to the intense contemplation of that deepest and most solemn of all relations - the relations between the creature and his Creator.

  Daniel Webster

  Kings, Men, Individuality

  DANIEL WEBSTER (1853). “THE WORKS OF DANIEL WEBSTER; VOLUME II”, p.301

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• Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences.

  John Adams

  Graduation, Country, Opportunity

  John Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.259

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• Corruption of morals is rapid enough in any country without a bounty from government. And...the Chief Magistrate of the United States should be the last man to accelerate its progress.

  Daniel Webster

  Country, Men, Progress

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• Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature. It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we can preserve no other.

  John Locke

  Wisdom, Gun, Men

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• As the magistrate has no power to impose by his laws the use of any rites and ceremonies in any church, so neither has he any power to forbid the use of such rites and ceremonies as are already received, approved, and practised by any church; because if he did so, he would destroy the church itself; the end of whose institution is only to worship God with freedom, after its own manner.

  John Locke

  Law, Atheism, Church

  John Locke (2012). “A Letter Concerning Toleration: Latin and English Texts Revised and Edited with Variants and an Introduction”, p.65, Springer Science & Business Media

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• The perfect life: to live in a world of peace in a lake district where the magistrate is good and honest, and to have an understanding wife and bright children.

  Zhang Zhao

  Children, Lakes, Perfect

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• If the civil magistrate be a Christian, a disciple or follower of the meek Lamb of God, he is bound to be far from destroying the bodies of men for refusing to receive the Lord Jesus Christ: for otherwise he would be ignorant of the sweet end of Christ's coming, which was to save the bodies and souls of men.

  Roger Williams

  Christian, Sweet, Jesus

  Source: www.libertymagazine.org

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• This scripture [Romans 13:1-6] is wrested from the scope of God's Spirit, and the nature of the place, and cannot truly be interpreted to mean that the power of the civil magistrate may be exercised in spiritual or soul matters.

  Roger Williams

  Spiritual, Mean, Soul

  Source: www.libertymagazine.org

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• If some period be not fixed, either by the Constitution or by practice, to the services of the First Magistrate, his office, though nominally elective, will, in fact, be for life, and that will soon degenerate into an inheritance.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Practice, Office

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.89

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• ... we have gratefully to receive from the hand of God the institution of the state with its magistrates as a means of preservation.... On the other hand ... by virtue of our natural impulse, we must ever watch against the danger which lurks for our personal liberty in the power of the state.

  Abraham Kuyper

  Mean, Hands, Liberty

  Abraham Kuyper (2007). “Lectures on Calvinism”, p.81, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Religion, or the duty we owe to our Creator, and manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and, therefore, that all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience, unpunished and unrestrained by the magistrate, unless under color of religion any man disturb the peace, the happiness, or safety of society, and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love and charity toward each other.

  James Madison

  Christian, Exercise, Men

  James Madison (1900). “The Writings of James Madison: 1769-1783”

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• Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Taken, Government, Support

  "On Freedom of Speech and the Press". Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania Gazette, November 17, 1737.

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• In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.

  James Madison

  Military, War, Long

  James Madison (1787). “The Writings of James Madison: 1787. The journal of the Constitutional convention”, p.317

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• The Magistrate suffered from the disability of a free-thinking turn of mind and from a life that was barren and dreary to match.

  J. G. Farrell

  Thinking, Mind, Disability

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• We cannot distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong, or know what obedience we owe to the magistrate, or what we may justly expect from him, unless we know what he is, why he is, and by whom he is made to be what he is.... I cannot know how to obey unless I know in what, and to whom; nor in what unless I know what ought to be commanded; nor what ought to be commanded unless I understand the original right of the commander, which is the great arcanum.

  Algernon Sidney

  May, Obedience, Made

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• An annual or frequent choice of Magistrates, who in a year, or in a few years, are again left upon a level with their neighbors, is most likely to prevent usurpation and tyranny ... If rulers know that they shall in short period of time, be again out of power, and ... may be liable to be called to account for misconduct, it will guard them against maladministration.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Years, Choices, Political

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• A king is the first servant and first magistrate of the state.

  Frederick The Great

  Kings, Firsts, States

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• No gilded dome swells from the lowly roof to catch the morning or evening beam; but the love and gratitude of united America settle upon it in one eternal sunshine. From beneath that humble roof went forth the intrepid and unselfish warrior, the magistrate who knew no glory but his country's good; to that he returned, happiest when his work was done. There he lived in noble simplicity, there he died in glory and peace.

  Edward Everett Hale

  Country, Gratitude, Peace

  "A Library of American Literature from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time Vol. V". Book by Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, 1888.

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• I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate.

  George Washington

  Country, Voice, Function

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1839). “The Writings of George Washington: pt. IV. Letters official and private, from the beginning of his presidency to the end of his life: (v. 10) May, 1789-November, 1794. (v. 11) November, 1794-December, 1799”, p.323

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• Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.

  John Stuart Mill

  Mean, Practice, Ideas

  John Stuart Mill (1864). “On Liberty”, p.13

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• We do not accost a physician as we do any mere nobody; nor a magistrate as we do a private individual. We try to get some advantage from the skill of the one and the position of the other. Walk in the sun, and your shadow will follow you, whether you will or not.

  Saint Basil

  Skills, Shadow, Trying

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• This magistrate is not the king. The people are the king.

  Gouverneur Morris

  Kings, Umpires, People

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