Best Amendment 13 Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite.”

Source: Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.”

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”

“For an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic.”

Source: 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

“One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.”

Source: Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson

“That we we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Source: The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787: Which Framed the Constitution of the United States of America

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.”

Source: The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts; with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations

“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”

“To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”

“The Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.”

“A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves... and include all men capable of bearing arms.”

Source: An Additional number of letters from the Federal farmer to the Republican, leading to a fair examination of the system of government, proposed by the late Convention: to several essential and necessary alterations in it; and calculated to illustrate and support the principles and positions laid down in the preceding letters. Together with Oberservations on the new Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions by a Columbian patriot

“The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.”