Founding Fathers Quotes on Kings

“In America, the rule of law is king. But where says some is the King of America? I’ll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain.”

“To give praise which is not due might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature. They know, and will therefore say, that kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people.”

“The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution.”

“The President of the United States would be an officer elected by the people for FOUR years; the king of Great Britain is a perpetual and HEREDITARY prince.”

“[T]he troops of George III. have crossed the wide Atlantic, not to engage an enemy, but to assist a band of traitors in trampling on [...] those rights and liberties which, as a father, he ought ever to regard, and as a king, he is bound, in honor, to defend from violation, even at the risk of his own life.”

“Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness. [...] We claim them from a higher source – from the King of kings and Lord of all the earth.”

“This president will be no dictator two thirds of the representatives and the senate may pass any law, notwithstanding his dissent; and he is removable and punishable for misbehaviour.”

“We have seen that the late Honorable Convention, in designating the nature of the chief executive office of the United States, have deprived it of all the dangerous appendages of royalty, and provided for the frequent expiration of its limited powers. As our President bears no resemblance to a king, so we shall see the Senate have no similitude to nobles.”

“The office of the president is treated with levity and intimated to be a machine calculated for state pageantry—Suffer me to view the commander of the fleets and armies of America, with a reverntial awe, inspired by the contemplation of his great perorogatives, though not dignified with the magic name of King, he will possess more supreme power, than Great Britain allows her hereditary monarches, who derive ability to support an army from annual supplies, and owe the command of one to an annual mutiny law.”