Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from Indiana. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to be here and be part of this significant issue. In the Constitution it says that certain things are self-evident. And what are the things that were self-evident in the Declaration of Independence? I have to get words right, don't I? In the Declaration of Independence there are things that are self-evident. And what was self- evident is that all men are created equal in a political sense. And because of that, because all men are equal, the Creator has given us certain inalienable rights. And then it goes on to say the next step in that process is once you have those inalienable rights, it is the purpose of government to secure those rights. That's what we are talking about here, that within the concept of our country, which was written and established in the brilliant prose of Thomas Jefferson, every individual has an innate-- almost divine--worth within them which signifies that they all have certain rights that are there from the Creator. In England, those rights were established in law starting with the Magna Carta and then building on, so that at the time of our country's founding, everyone knew what the rights of Englishmen were. Our Revolutionary War was not about taxes being too high. It was, not as some revisionist historians will say, about impressment of colonials into the British Navy.…”