Fisher Ames - Works of Fisher Ames

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The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness, which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be, liberty.

Fisher Ames
A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.

Fisher Ames
The people as a body cannot deliberate. Nevertheless, they will feel an irresistible impulse to act, and their resolutions will be dictated to them by their demagogues... and the violent men, who are the most forward to gratify those passions, will be their favorites. What is called the government of the people is in fact too often the arbitrary power of such men. Here, then, we have the faithful portrait of democracy.

Fisher Ames
I consider biennial elections as a security that the sober, second thought of the people shall be law.

Fisher Ames
We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press...It is a precious pest, and a necessary mischief, and there would be no liberty without it.

Fisher Ames
A government by the passions of the multitude, or, no less correctly, according to the vices, and ambitions of their leaders is a democracy.

Fisher Ames
All such men are, or ought to be, agreed, that simple governments are despotisms; and of all despotisms, a democracy, though the least durable, is the most violent.

Fisher Ames
Why then, if these books for children must be retained, as they will be, should not the bible regain the place it once held as a school book? Its morals are pure, its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the sacred book, that is thus early impressed, lasts long ; and, probably, if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind.

Fisher Ames
I have heard it remarked that men are not to be reasoned out of an opinion they have not reasoned themselves into.

Fisher Ames
Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits... it is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers.

Fisher Ames
The House is composed of very good men, not shining, but honest and reasonably well-informed, and in time they will be found to improve, and not to be much inferior in eloquence, science, and dignity, to the British Commons. They are patriotic enough, and I believe there are more stupid (as well as more shining) people in the latter, in proportion.

Fisher Ames
America is rising with a giant's strength. Its bones are yet but cartilages.

Fisher Ames
Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.

Fisher Ames
Time never fails to bring every exalted reputation to a strict scrutiny.

Fisher Ames
I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people. It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful. I love liberty as well as anybody. I am proud of it, as the true title of our people to distinction above others; but... I would guard it by making the laws strong enough to protect it.

Fisher Ames
A large portion of our citizens, who will not believe, even on the evidence of facts, that any public evils exist, or are impending. They deride the apprehensions of those who foresee, that licentiousness will prove, as it ever has proved, fatal to liberty.

Fisher Ames
Liberty is not to be enjoyed, indeed it cannot exist, without the habits of just subordination; it consists, not so much in removing all restraint from the orderly, as in imposing it on the violent.

Fisher Ames