“The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob.  They gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed. And for more than two hundred years, we have.”

—  Barack Obama

2013, Second Inaugural Address (January 2013)
Context: The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob.  They gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed. And for more than two hundred years, we have. Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free. We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 30, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. …" by Barack Obama?
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama 1158
44th President of the United States of America 1961

Related quotes

Patrick Buchanan photo

“How did it happen that a republic born of a rebellion against a king and parliament we did not elect has fallen under a tyranny of judges we did not elect?”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

2000s, Where the Right Went Wrong (2004)

John Grisham photo
Ann Coulter photo

“Eliminating standardized tests allows the cognitive elite to manipulate the soft stuff in ways the less-often-washed cannot. Mount Holyoke has accomplished nothing more than replacing a tyranny of merit with a tyranny of privilege.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2000
Context: It is true that some percentage of bright people really do not test well, but most of the time the only thing about "common man's intelligence" that is indubitably true is that it is common. The concept of some ephemeral, elusive nonverbal intelligence simply allows one to impute intelligence to anyone who strikes your fancy. … Eliminating standardized tests allows the cognitive elite to manipulate the soft stuff in ways the less-often-washed cannot. Mount Holyoke has accomplished nothing more than replacing a tyranny of merit with a tyranny of privilege.

Alvin C. York photo
Alvin C. York photo
George Macartney photo

“The Government, as it stands, is properly the tyranny of a handful of Tatars over more than three hundred millions of Chinese.”

George Macartney (1737–1806) British statesman, colonial administrator and diplomat

Our First Ambassador to China (Biography, 1908)

William Penn photo

“Any government is free to the people under it (whatever be the frame) where the law rules, and the people are a party to those laws, and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, or confusion.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

Frame of Government (1682)
Context: I know what is said by the several admirers of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, which are the rule of one, a few, and many, and are the three common ideas of government, when men discourse on the subject. But I chuse to solve the controversy with this small distinction, and it belongs to all three: Any government is free to the people under it (whatever be the frame) where the law rules, and the people are a party to those laws, and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, or confusion.

Maynard James Keenan photo
John Allen Fraser photo

Related topics