Great Quotes from Great People!

When the last dutiful & humble petition from Congress received no other Answer than declaring us Rebels, and out of the King’s protection, I from that Moment look’d forward to a Revolution & Independence, as the only means of Salvation; and will risque the last Penny of my Fortune, & the last Drop of my Blood upon the Issue. George Mason, October 2, 1778

We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand. Thomas Paine, February 14, 1776

[The Constitution of the United States] 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, March 10, 1834

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power. Alexander Hamilton, 1775

The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their will, and lives only by their will. Chief Justice John Marshall, 1821

The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. . . . In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free–honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth. President Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862

The more men you make free, the more freedom is strengthened, and the . . . greater is the security of the State. Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, statesman, and former slave, November 17, 1864

The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent & respectable Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights & previleges. George Washington, Address to Irish Immigrants, draft handwritten by David Humphries, December 2, 1783

It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. Susan B. Anthony, 1873, "Is It a Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote?" speech delivered following her arrest for voting in the election of 1872

The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them. Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1821