“Tenacity is a pretty fair substitute for bravery, and the best form of tenacity I know is expressed in a Danish fur trapper's principle: "The next mile is the only one a person really has to make."”
“To consider the degree of concord which ultimately prevailed as less than a miracle.”
Source: 1769-1793
“A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.”
Source: The works of Alexander Hamilton: comprising his correspondence, and his political and official writings, exclusive of the Federalist, civil and military. Published from the original manuscripts deposited in the Department of State, by order of the Joint Library Committee of Congress
“The fundamental principle of our constitution ... enjoins the sense of command, duty that the will of the majority shall prevail.”
“The duty imposed upon him [the president] to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, follows out the strong injunctions of his oath of office, that he will 'preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.' The great object of the executive department is to accomplish this purpose; and without it, be the form of government whatever it may, it will be utterly worthless for offence or defense; for the redress of grievances or the protection of rights; for the happiness, or good order, or safety of the people.”
Source: Commentaries on the constitution of the United States
“A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is a power without right.”
Source: Citizen Paine: Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion
“No man can well doubt the propriety of placing a president of the United States under the most solemn obligations to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution. It is a suitable pledge of his fidelity and responsibility to his country; and creates upon his conscience a deep sense of duty, by an appeal, at once in the presence of God and man, to the most sacred and solemn sanctions which can operate upon the human mind.”
Source: Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States, Before the Adoption of the Constitution
“He [Washington] has often declared to me that he considered our new constitution as an experiment on the practicability of republican government, and with what dose of liberty man could be trusted for his own good; that he was determined the experiment should have a fair trial, and would lose the last drop of his blood in support of it. And these declarations he repeated to me the oftener and the more pointedly.”
Source: Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson
“Of all the objections which have been framed against the federal Constitution, this is perhaps the most extraordinary. Whilst the objection itself is levelled against a pretended oligarchy, the principle of it strikes at the very root of republican government.”
Source: The Federalist Papers and the Constitution of the United States: The Principles of the American Government
“With all the defects in our Constitution, whether general or particular, the comparison of our government with those of Europe, is like a comparison of Heaven with Hell. England, like the earth, may be allowed to take the intermediate station.”
Source: Life of Thomas Jefferson: with selections from the most valuable portions of his voluminious and unrivalled private correspondence : with portrait
