Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
Interpretation
The quote questions the notion of trust in personal defense without relying on centralized authority.
Patrick Henry's quote raises critical concerns about individual rights and responsibilities in regard to personal defense. He argues that citizens should have the authority to wield arms for their own protection rather than delegating that power solely to Congress, highlighting the significance of self-governance and personal liberty in matters of defense.
In practice
This quote can be used during discussions about gun rights and personal safety.
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?
Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defense, the militia, is put in the hands of Congress? Of what service would militia be to you when, most probably, you will not have a single musket in the state? For, as arms are to be provided by Congress, they may or may not provide them.
I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery.
The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery
I know some say, let us have good laws, and no matter for the men that execute them: but let them consider, that though good laws do well, good men do better: for good laws may want good men, and be abolished or evaded [invaded in Franklin's print] by ill men; but good men will never want good laws, nor suffer ill ones.
Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace! – but there is no peace.
At bottom, I mean profoundly at bottom, the FBI has nothing to do with Communism, it has nothing to do with catching criminals, it has nothing to do with the Mafia, the syndicate, it has nothing to do with trust-busting, it has nothing to do with interstate commerce, it has nothing to do with anything but serving as a church for the mediocre. A high church for the true mediocre.
I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.
Eternity is not an unending succession of days in the calendar, but something more like the supreme moment of satisfaction, in which totality embraces us and we embrace totality.
Religion is like a map. The route isn't important. It's the destination that matters.
Christians aren't people who never sin or always do the right thing. We're people who live in continual repentance.
Not only do words infect, egotize, narcotize, and paralyze, but they enter into and colour the minutest cells of the brain. . . .
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