Path to Liberty Tenth Amendment Center

In the American system, the people of the several states are sovereign, meaning they hold final or ultimate authority. Power flows from them to the federal government, which merely serves as their agent.

In his 1850 essay The Law, Bastiat railed against socialism, and argued that legitimate law isn’t just the will of politicians, but instead is based on protecting the natural rights of individuals. You can see inspiration in these views from Locke, Jefferson, Paine and more.

George Washington: “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” Thomas Jefferson: “Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.”

From Samuel Adams and Thomas Jefferson to Lysander Spooner - the notion that the people should submit until they can replace enough politicians to stop the government from doing what the government was never authorized to do in the first place - is only a guarantee that they’ll never stop, and it’ll keep getting worse.

Jefferson’s chilling warnings about unchecked fiat, paper money printing proved prophetic as the U.S. plunged into its first boom-bust economic crisis in the early 19th century.

With some of his sharpest satire and wit, Franklin told the British the top-20 ways their policies would bring their empire over the American colonies to an end. Much of it sounds pretty familiar to what we face today.