To enslave, disarm the people . . .

• “[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, – who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia.” –George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

• “[T]he people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.” –Zacharia Johnson, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

• “Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.” –James Madison, Federalist No. 46

• “If a well-regulated militia be the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security. If standing armies are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia in the same body ought, as far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext to such unfriendly institutions. If the federal government can command the aid of the militia in those emergencies which call for the military arm in support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the employment of a different kind of force. If it cannot avail itself of the former, it will be obliged to recur to the latter. To render an army unnecessary will be a more certain method of preventing its existence than a thousand prohibitions upon paper.” –Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 29

Here comes the orator!

• “Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.” –Benjamin Franklin

Securing liberty and happiness . . .

• “[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, essay in The Public Advertiser, 1749
  

The principle of spending money . . .

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  “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” –Thomas Jefferson

A good moral character . . .

• “[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous.” –George Washington, letter to Steptoe Washington, 1790
  

Let principle be your guide . . .

• “In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate – look to his character….” –Noah Webster, Letters to a Young Gentleman Commencing His Education, 1789
  

It will be of little avail . . .

• “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be to-morrow.” –Federalist No. 62
  

Wherever the people are well-informed . . .

• “It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.” –Thomas Jefferson

The God who gave us life . . .

• “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” –Thomas Jefferson, Summary View of the Rights of British America, 1774
  

The machinery of government . . .

• “I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” –Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Ludlow, 1824
  

The same prudence . . .

• “The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.” –Thomas Jefferson, letter to Shelton Gilliam, 1808