We shall never be abandoned by Heaven while we act worthy of its aid and protection
Samuel AdamsRead
Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote...that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.
Interpretation
Voting is a serious responsibility that holds moral and civic accountability.
This quote emphasizes the gravity of the act of voting, suggesting that each citizen should recognize the significant responsibility they bear when casting their vote. It implies that voting is not merely a civic duty but a solemn trust, one that individuals owe not only to their nation but also to a higher moral standard or divinity, reinforcing the importance of conscious decision-making in democratic participation.
In practice
During a civic engagement workshop emphasizing the importance of voting.
We shall never be abandoned by Heaven while we act worthy of its aid and protection
Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.
If taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves? We claim British rights not by charter only! We are born to them.
Let no man thirst for good beer.
He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.
We boast of our freedom, and we have your example for it. We talk the language we have always heard you speak.
If you don't have a record to run on, you paint your opponent as someone to run from.
Freedom of expression - in particular, freedom of the press - guarantees popular participation in the decisions and actions of government, and popular participation is the essence of our democracy.
Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?
For a very long time, and among a large number of peoples, political power has belonged to the owners of the land.
The effort to calculate exactly what the voters want at each particular moment leaves out of account the fact that when they are troubled the thing the voters most want is to be told what to want.
Politicians will talk strategy and tactics and policies and programs until they're blue in the face, or you strangle them and they turn blue.
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