John Adams Quotes on Law & Regulation (9 Quotes)

'A government of laws and not of men.' Adams published articles in 1774 in the Boston, Massachusetts, Gazette using the pseudonym 'Novanglus.' In this paper he credited James Harrington with expressing the idea this way. Harrington described government as 'the empire of laws and not of men' in his 1656 work, The Commonwealth of Oceana, p. 35 (1771). The phrase gained wider currency when Adams used it in the Massachusetts Constitution, Bill of Rights, article 30 (1780). Works, vol. 4, p. 230.

I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by. The definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory.

Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.

The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles.

The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.

A government of laws, and not of men.

It's unethical for a lawyer to plead his client to the death penalty. As long as that's there, the defense can't do anything.

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

From the time we became an independant nation, it was as much a law of nature that this would become our claim as that the Mississippi should flow to sea.