Those who would give up essential liberties, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety.
                                               – Benjamin Franklin
 
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.  
                                                   – James Madison 
     
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.                                                    – James Madison

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.                                  – Alexander Solzenitsyn

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
                                                   – James Madison
 
"I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery.... Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty towards the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings."   – Patrick Henry

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing us to slavery."   
                                               – Thomas Jefferson