Original Intent

"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it."

James Wilson

The Legitimate Constitution

"I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful, exercise of it's powers...What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were taken in its modern sense."

James Madison

Questions of Construction

"On every question of Construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollecting the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."

Thomas Jefferson to SCOTUS Justice William Johnson

Medicating the Dead

"Attempting to debate with a person who has abandoned reason is like giving medicine to the dead."


~ Thomas Paine

A New Nation

"Tis done! We have become a nation."

Benjamin Rush

The Value of Education

"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."

James Madison

Limits to Earthly Understanding

"How has it happened...that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings?"

Benjamin Franklin

Actors

"The citizens of America...are from this period t be considered as the actors on a most conspicuous theater,which seems to be peculiarly designated by Providence for the display of human greatness and felicity."

George Washington