John Adams: "Liberty, once lost, is lost forever"
I’ve been watching the outstanding HBO miniseries, John Adams, and it’s given me a new appreciation for the great man who was our second president of the United States.
In his travels during the American Revolution, he wrote many letters to his wife, Abigail Adams. This excerpt was from Familiar letters of John Adams and his wife Abigail Adams, during the Revolution, written July 7, 1775.
Your description of the distresses of the worthy inhabitants of Boston, and the other seaport towns, is enough to melt a heart of stone. Our consolation must be this, my dear, that cities may be rebuilt, and a people reduced to poverty, may acquire fresh property. But a constitution of government, once changed from freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the people once surrender their share in the legislature, and their right of defending the limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT
