This is Memorial Day and besides all of the expected ways it is celebrated I figured some memorable thoughts of our founding fathers might be appropriate to reflect upon:
In 1798 Jefferson wrote: “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” John Adams said in 1772, “There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.” His wife Abigail later commented, “Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.”
In a letter to George Washington in 1784, Jefferson asserted that the foundation on which any constitution must rest is “the denial of every preeminence.” He further argued in 1786 that the essence of America was that “the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favored one whenever their rights seem to jar.”
Robert Liptak
Iowa Bankruptcy Attorney