William Henry Harrison, in his Inaugural Address, March 4, 1841, warned: "Limited as are the powers which have been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute a despotism if concentrated ... This state of things has been in part effected by ... the never-failing tendency of political power to increase itself ..."
Abraham J. Baughman wrote in Past and Present of Wyandot County, Ohio: a record of settlement (Chicago: The S.J. Clark Publishing Company, 1913, Volume 1, page 39-43): "At Pipetown was a considerable body of Delawares ... At this place Stewart stopped, but as the Indians were preparing for a great dance they paid but little attention to him ...
Stewart took out his hymn book and began to sing."
In 1806, five Williams College students met by the Hoosic River in Massachusetts near a grove of trees to discuss how to reach the world with the Gospel. Suddenly a thunderstorm poured down torrential rain and the students hid next to a haystack till it passed. While there, they prayed and committed themselves to world missions.
On January 1, 1802, Jefferson wrote back, agreeing with the Baptists: "Gentlemen ... Believing WITH you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions..."
President Ford addressed the Annual Dinner Meeting of the Bay Area Council in San Francisco, CA, April 4, 1975: "Over the 25 years that I had the privilege of serving in the House of Representatives ... well-motivated Members of the House of Representatives would get up and argue effectively and convincingly and certainly in the highest motivation for this social program or that social program. Pretty soon, we started to have this proliferation, and believe me, it has proliferated ...
I recall most vividly sitting there on many occasions and thinking to myself, don't they realize that a government big enough to give us everything we want is a government big enough to take from us everything we have?"
