"Virtue is the spirit of a republic; for where all power is derived from the people, all depends on their good disposition. If they are impious, factious and selfish; if they are abandoned to idleness, dissipation, luxury, and extravagance; if they are lost to the fear of God, and the love of their country, all is lost."
~Samuel Cooper, Oct. 25, 1780
A Sermon on the Commencement of the Constitution
“The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power.
A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.”
~Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 11, 1787
“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.”
~Thomas Jefferson
“It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and to educate them according to the suggestions of a judicious and zealous regard for their usefulness, their respectability and happiness.”
~James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791
“The state governments have a full superintendence and control over the immense mass of local interests of their respective states, which connect themselves with the feelings, the affections, the municipal institutions, and the internal arrangements of the whole population.
They possess, too, the immediate administration of justice in all cases, civil and criminal, which concern the property, personal rights, and peaceful pursuits of their own citizens.”
~Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
“I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people.
It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful.”
~Fisher Ames
“If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?”
~John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
“There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire.
If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage.”
~John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776
“It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth – and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts.
Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?
For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.”
~Patrick Henry
"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
~Thomas Paine
