"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. -Thomas Jefferson

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on the article of the Constitution which grants a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents --James Madison

The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government --James Madison in a January 1794 speech in the House of Representatives

I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity...doing so would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded --President Franklin Pierce in vetoing a federal bill to help the mentally ill

I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan to indulge in benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds. I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution ---President Grover Cleveland in vetoing an 1887 bill to assist drought-ravaged areas of Texas

We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity, but as members of Congress, we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money ---Rep. Col. Davy Crockett in a speech before the House of Representatives in opposition to a $10,000 appropriation for the widow of an American naval officer

"Nations are like men in that they prefer a fuss made in their behalf to real services rendered." de Tocqueville

"A good catchword can obscure analysis for fifty years." Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes