Self Government

"Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."

Thomas Jefferson

Republicanism

"Republicanism is not the phantom of a deluded imagination. On the contrary...under no form of government, will laws be better supported, liberty and property better secured, or happiness be more effectually dispensed to mankind."

George Washington

Free Exercise of Religion

"All men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that no particular sect or society of Christians ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others."

George Mason

Intent of Parties

"The first and fundamental rule in the interpretation of all instruments is to construe them according to the sense of the terms and the intention of the parties."

Justice Joseph Story

Tumult of Liberty

"Societies exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without government, as among our Indians. 2. Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight degree, and in our states in a great one. 3. Under governments of force: as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics. To have an idea of the curse of existence under these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep. It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that the 1st. condition is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population. The second state has a great deal of good in it. The mass of mankind under that enjoys a precious degree of liberty and happiness. It has it's evils too: the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing. Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem. Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

(Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem. "I prefer the tumult of Liberty to the quiet of servitude.)
Thomas Jefferson

Devotion to Country

"God, in his great goodness grant, in the future vicissitudes of the world, that our countrymen, whenever their essential rights shall be attacked, will divest themselves of all party prejudice, and devote their lives and properties in the defence of the sacred liberties of their country, without any view to emolument, but that which springs from glorious and honorable actions."
~John Joseph Henry; Revolutionary War Soldier

Equal Justice

"The Law should be equal for all, whether it rewards or punishes, whether it protects or restrains."

Thomas Paine

Safe and Precise

"When an insturment admits two constructions, the one safe, the other dangerous, the one precise, the other indefinite, I prefer that which is safe & precise. I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless."

Thomas Jefferson