"We the People of the United States,
in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty
to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution
for the United States of America , Done
. . . the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our
LORD one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven."—George
Washington and the delegates
"[The President] shall from time
to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the
Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures
as he shall judge necessary and expedient."
—Article II, Sec. 3, U.S. Constitution
"The basis of our political systems is the right of the
people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government.
But the Constitution which at any time exists, 'till changed
by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People is sacredly
obligatory upon all."—George Washington
"No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient
and unpleasant."—George Washington
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article
of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending,
on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents
. . . "—James Madison
"Nothing has yet been offered to
invalidate the doctrine that the meaning of the Constitution
may as well be ascertained by the Legislative as by the Judicial
authority."—James Madison (speech in the Congress
of the United States, 18 June 1789)
"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property
is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not
a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and
tyranny commence. If 'Thou shalt not covet' and 'Thou shalt
not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made
inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized
or made free."—John Adams
"When the people find they can vote themselves money,
that will herald the end of the republic." —Benjamin
Franklin
"[R]eligion and virtue are the only foundations, not
of republicanism and of all free government, but of social
felicity under all government and in all the combinations
of human society."—John Adams
"You give me a credit to which I have no claim in calling
me 'the writer of the Constitution of the United States.'
This was not, like the fabled Goddess of Wisdom, the offspring
of a single brain. It ought to be regarded as the work of
many heads and many hands."—James Madison
"The Constitution which at any
time exists, 'till changed by an explicit and authentic act
of the whole People is sacredly obligatory upon all."—George
Washington
"There is no good government but
what is republican. That the only valuable part of the British
constitution is so; for the true idea of a republic is "an
empire of laws, and not of men." That, as a republic
is the best of governments, so that particular arrangement
of the powers of society, or in other words, that form of
government which is best contrived to secure an impartial
and exact execution of the law, is the best of republics."—John
Adams (Thoughts on Government, 1776)
"The Constitution was made to guard the people against
the dangers of good intentions."—Daniel Webster
"[N]either the wisest constitution
nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness
of a people whose manners are universally corrupt."—Samuel
Adams
"That government is best which governs least."—Henry
David Thoreau
"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought
to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom
to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of
the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual
precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue
to hold their public trust."—Alexander Hamilton
or James Madison
"We have staked the whole
of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind
for self- government, upon the capacity of each and all of
us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves
according to the Ten Commandments of God."—James
Madison
"[T]he present Constitution
is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners,
bona fide must we combat our political foes—rejecting
all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments."—Alexander
Hamilton (letter to James Bayard, April 1802)Reference: Selected
Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton, Frisch, ed. (511)
"The said constitution
shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent
the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens
from keeping their own arms."—Samuel
Adams
"Hold on, my friends,
to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands.
Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000
years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution,
for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be
anarchy throughout the world."—Daniel Webster
"The inherent
right in the people to reform their government, I do not deny;
and they have another right, and that is to resist unconstitutional
laws without overturning the government."—Daniel
Webster
"I will venture to assert
that no combination of designing men under heaven will be
capable of making a government unpopular which is in its principles
a wise and good one, and vigorous in its operations."
—Alexander Hamilton, (speech to the New York Ratifying
Convention, June 1788), Reference: The Works of Alexander
Hamilton, Henry Cabot Lodge, ed., II, 29.
"When you assemble from
your several counties in the Legislature, were every member
to be guided only by the apparent interest of his county,
government would be impracticable. There must be a perpetual
accommodation and sacrifice of local advantage to general
expediency." —Alexander Hamilton
"We may be tossed upon
an ocean where we can see no land—nor,
perhaps, the sun or stars. But there is a chart and a compass
for us to study, to consult, and to obey. That chart is the
Constitution."—Daniel
Webster
"It is easy to
think the State has a lot of different objects—military,
political, economic, and what not.
But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State
exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness
of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting
over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in
a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in
his own garden—that is what the State is there for.
And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect
such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police,
economics, etc., are simply a waste of time."—C.
S. Lewis
"In general, the art
of government consists in taking as much money as possible
from one party of the citizens to give to the other."—Voltaire
"Public opinion
sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign
in every free one." —James Madison
"We contend that for
a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man
standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the
handle."—Winston Churchill
"Done . . . the seventeenth
day of September, in the year of our LORD one thousand seven
hundred and eighty seven."—Closing line of the
U.S. Constitution
"They define a republic to be a
government of laws, and not of men."—John Adams
(Novanglus No. 7, 6 March 1775), Reference: Papers of John
Adams, Taylor, ed., vol. 2 (314)
"I trust that the proposed Constitution
afford a genuine specimen of representative government and
republican government; and that it will answer, in an eminent
degree, all the beneficial purposes of society."—Alexander
Hamilton (speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June
1788) Reference: The Works of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Cabot
Lodge, ed., II, 30
"Whatever may be the judgement
pronounced on the competency of the architects of the Constitution,
or whatever may be the destiny of the edifice prepared by
them, I feel it a duty to express my profound and solemn conviction
. . . that there never was an assembly of men, charged with
a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives,
or more exclusively or anxiously devoted to the object committed
to them."—James Madison (in a, Circa 1835)Reference:
1787: The Grand Convention, Rossiter (316) original Madison,
Brandt, ed., vol. 4 (515)
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