The Law of Nature and the Law of Revelation are Both Divine

James Wilson

“The law of nature and the law of revelation are both Divine: they flow, though in different channels, from the same adorable source. It is indeed preposterous to separate them from each other.” — James Wilson, 1804.

There Is No Such Thing As An Equality of Condition

James Fenimore Cooper

“There are numerous instances in which the social inequality of America may do violence to our notions of abstract justice, but the compromise of interests under which all civilized society must exist, renders this unavoidable. . . . If we would have civilization and the exertion indispensable to its success, we must have property; if we have property, we must have its rights; if we have the rights of property, we must take those consequences of the rights of property which are inseparable from the rights themselves.”

“The equality of rights in America, therefore, after allowing for the striking exception of domestic slavery, is only a greater extension of the principle [that] there is no such thing as an equality of condition.” — James Fenimore Cooper, “The American Democrat”, 1838

It Is Not Honorable to Take Mere Legal Advantage…

Thomas Jefferson

“It is not honorable to take mere legal advantage, when it happens to be contrary to justice.” — Thomas Jefferson

It Is of Great Importance to Set a Resolution… Never to Tell an Untruth

Thomas Jefferson

“It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him.” — Thomas Jefferson (1785)

Tyranny, Like Hell, is Not Easily Conquered…

Thomas Paine

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” — Thomas Paine, American Crisis, No. 1, 1776

Free Government is Founded in Jealousy Not in Confidence…

Thomas Jefferson

“Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power.” — Thomas Jefferson, The Kentucky Resolutions, 1799

Determine Never to Be Idle

Thomas & Martha Jefferson

“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.” — Thomas Jefferson, letter to Martha Jefferson, 1787

Arbitrary Power Established on the Ruins of Liberty…

George Washington

“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.” — George Washington

A Republic… a Government of Laws

John Adams

“They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.” — John Adams

Let There Be No Change By Usurpation

George Washington

“If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.” — George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796