"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

"A wise and frugal government... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.."
—Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."
—Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

"He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner."
—Benjamin Franklin

"It's not tyranny we desire, it's a just, limited, federal government."

"In the main it will be found that a power over a man's support [salary] is a power over his will."
—Alexander Hamilton

"The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted."
—James Madison

"No power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent."
—John Jay

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If 'Thou shalt not covet' and 'Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free."
—John Adams from A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787