For why should my freedom be limited by what someone else thinks? Corinthians 10:29
Set this year apart as holy, a time to proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live there.
It will be a jubilee year for you, when each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors and return to your own clan.
— Leviticus 25:10
Origin of the Quaker motto that was
inscribed on the Liberty Bell at the suggestion of Isaac Norris
"Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to 'bind me in all cases whatsoever' to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?"
These people are either too superstitiously religious, or too cowardly for arms; they either cannot or dare not defend; their property is open to any one who has the courage to attack them. Send but your troops and the prize is ours. Kill a few and take the whole. Thus the peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned, while they neglect the means of self defence.
The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property.
The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up.
Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong. The history of every age and nation establishes these truths, and facts need but little arguments when they prove themselves.
— Thomas Paine, Thoughts on Defensive War (1774)
Brigadier General Daniel Morgan, inspiration for the move The Patriot, was the best tactician of the Revolution...and opposed to preemptive war
As to war, I am and always was a great enemy, at the same time a warrior the greater part of my life, and were I young again, should still be a warrior while ever this country should be invaded and I lived — a Defensive war I think a righteous war to Defend my life & property & that of my family, in my own opinion, is right & justifiable in the sight of God.
An offensive war, I believe to be wrong and would therefore have nothing to do with it, having no right to meddle with another man’s property, his ox or his ass, his man servant or his maid servant or anything this is his. Neither does he have a right to meddle with anything that is mine, if he does I have a right to defend it by force.
— Brigadier General Daniel Morgan of the American Revolutionary War, letter to Miles Etting (1798)
But Now You Know
Words of the Sentient 