Andrew Fletcher

Quotes

• “I said I knew a very wise man so much of Sir Christopher's sentiment, that he believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads he need not care who should make the laws of a nation, and we find that most of the ancient legislators thought that they could not well reform the manners of any city without the help of a lyric, and sometimes of a dramatic poet.”
• “For this reason I shall examine, by what has passed of late years in these nations, whether experience have convinced us, that officers bred in foreign wars be so far preferable to others who have been under no other discipline than that of an ordinary and ill-regulated militia; and if the commonality of both kingdoms, at their first entrance upon service, be not as capable of a resolute military action, as any standing forces. p. 44-45”
• “I cannot see, why arms should be denied to any man who is not a slave, since they are the only true badges of liberty; and ought never, but in times of utmost necessity, to be put into the hands of mercenaries or slaves: neither can I understand, why any man that has arms, should not be taught the use of them. p. 50”
• “The possession of arms is the distinction of a freeman from a slave. He who has nothing, and belongs to another, must be defended by him, and needs no arms: but he who thinks he is his own master, and has any thing he may call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself and what he possesses, or else he lives precariously and at discretion. p. 307”
• “We also know that a good and well regulated militia is of so great importance to a nation, as to be the principal part of the constitution of any free government. p. 346”

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