“And I hear from time to time people say, hey, wait a second, we have civil liberties we have to worry about. But don't forget the most important civil liberty I expect from my government is my right to be kept alive, and that's what we're going to have to do.”

Source: 2010s, 2015, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (2015), p. 8

While touring tsunami-devastated areas with his presidential predecessor, George H. W. Bush, February 2005[citation needed]
2000s

Terrorism Summit (Friday, 5 August 2005)

As quoted in England in the Eighteenth Century (1714 - 1815) (1964) by J. H. Plumb, p. 94
General sources

[CNN, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0603/26/le.01.html, 2006-03-26, CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, 2006-08-22]

Terrorism Summit (Friday, 5 August 2005)

1870s, Seventh State of the Union Address (1875)
Context: Our liberties remain unimpaired; the bondmen have been freed from slavery; we have become possessed of the respect, if not the friendship, of all civilized nations. Our progress has been great in all the arts—in science, agriculture, commerce, navigation, mining, mechanics, law, medicine, etc.; and in general education the progress is likewise encouraging. Our thirteen States have become thirty-eight, including Colorado (which has taken the initiatory steps to become a State), and eight Territories, including the Indian Territory and Alaska, and excluding Colorado, making a territory extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. On the south we have extended to the Gulf of Mexico, and in the west from the Mississippi to the Pacific.

Marty McNeal (June 11, 2000) "Bryant: A Game-Day Decision - Magic Had to Convince Him to Stay Out After Friday's Injury", The Sacramento Bee, p. C13.

Modernized rendition: I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.
The phrase "Liberty or Death" is a slogan made famous during the independence struggle of several countries.
1880s, Harriet, The Moses of Her People (1886)