Who was first to bid Legislature good riddance?

Finding out who said popular quotes is not always easy and misquoting is an area of concern for writers who do not want critics to create lists of their errors. This blog contains many quotes therefore, may contain some of the misquote type errors among others.

"No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session." 

- Mark Twain

This quote was cited in "Thought of the Day" at http://www.refdesk.com/



Was it Twain who said it first?

OR

Will Rogers, who did observe, in 1930, "This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as we do when the baby gets hold of a hammer. It's just a question of how much damage he can do with it before you take it away from him."

OR Judge Gideon Tucker?


No man's (life, liberty?) is safe while the Legislature is in session.


When they are working, they're raising fees, killing voter-initiated petitions and spending our money. 
 

Ben Franklin did say that "in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."


Will Rogers, who did observe, in 1930, "This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as we do when the baby gets hold of a hammer. It's just a question of how much damage he can do with it before you take it away from him."

 H.L. Mencken himself, who did say, "I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time," but made no comment regarding our safety while legislatures are in session.
 


Justice Joseph Storey was from Marblehead, and he could easily have made the statement, having written in his "Commentaries" of 1833 that "Certain popular leaders often acquire an extraordinary ascendancy over the (legislative) body, by their talents, their eloquence, their intrigues, or their cunning. Measures are often introduced in a hurry, and debated with little care, and examined with less caution."

 

It turns out that Judge Gideon Tucker did say, "No man's life, liberty or property is safe while the Legislature is in session" in 1866.


And I'll bet Mark Twain quoted Tucker shortly after and started to get credit, though not in official anthologies.

Judge Tucker recently was cited by the Home School Legal Defense Association in support of home schooling. The jurist had observed that "the only long-term defense of liberty is to elect legislators who understand and support home schooling."




Source:
CLT - Barbara Anderson's Column - Jul 2003 #4 - Quest for a quote: Who was first to bid Legislature good riddance?

http://cltg.org/cltg/barbara/2003/03-07-24_Quest%20for%20quote.htm


Citizens Economic Research Foundation

Barbara Anderson is executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation. Her syndicated columns appear weekly in the Salem News and the Lowell Sun; bi-weekly in the Tinytown Gazette; and occasionally in other newspapers.