Patrick Henry People Quotations

The people have a right to keep and bear arms.

I have the highest veneration of those Gentleman, -- but, Sir, give me leave to demand, what right had they to say, We, the People? My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the People, instead of We, the States? States are the characteristics, and the soul of the confederation. If the States be not the agents of this compact, it must be one of great consolidated National Government of the people of all the States.

[Our Constitution] is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.

Suspicion is a Virtue, if in the interests of the good of the people.

My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorized them (the framers of the Constitution) to speak the language of 'We, the People,' instead of 'We, the States'?

You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your government.

It is when a people forget God, that tyrants forge their chains.

What right do they have to say "we the people" rather than we the States?

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

I look on that paper (the Constitution) as the most fatal plan that could possibly be conceived to enslave a free people.