1787

Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 7.5

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

1787

★ 7.1

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

Federalist 15 · 1787

★ 7.1

It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 7.0

Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 7.0

The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority.

Federalist 22 · 1787

★ 7.0

Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

Life teaches us to be less harsh with ourselves and with others.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 7.0

Play

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Iphigenia in Tauris · 1787

★ 6.3

Speech

A republic, if you can keep it.

Benjamin Franklin

1787

★ 5.5

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1787

★ 5.5

The vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 3.9

Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.

Federalist 20 · 1787

★ 3.8

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States, which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the Supreme Law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

Constitution of the United States

1787

★ 3.8

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons.

Constitution of the United States

1787

★ 3.8

We, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right in any controversy.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 3.7

For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 3.7

A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.

It is wise to disclose what cannot be concealed.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 3.7

Play · Tragedy (play)

Friedrich Schiller

1787

★ 3.7

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

1787

★ 3.7

Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience?

Federalist 14 · 1787

★ 3.7

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 3.7

The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 3.7

Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 3.7

Mary Wollstonecraft

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters · 1787

★ 3.7

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

1787

★ 3.7

State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

1787

★ 3.7

I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.

In some men only the feeble glimmerings of Taste appear; the beauties which they relish are of the coarsest kind; and of these they have but a weak and confused impression, while in others, Taste rises to an acute discernment, and a lively enjoyment of the most refined beauties.

1787

★ 3.7

Lecture

Hugh Blair

1787

★ 3.5

Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!

Federalist 11 · 1787

★ 2.8

The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.

Federalist 21 · 1787

★ 2.1

The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 2.1

The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Constitution of the United States

1787

★ 2.1

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

Constitution of the United States

1787

★ 2.1

Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.

Federalist 15 · 1787

★ 2.0

A pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction.

1787

★ 2.0

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 2.0

A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 2.0

In a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region.

Federalist 14 · 1787

★ 2.0

The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 2.0

Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

1787

★ 2.0

Speech

All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people... The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.

1787

★ 2.0

The discovery of truth, by slow progressive meditation, is wisdom.

1787

★ 1.9

Johann Kaspar Lavater

1787

★ 1.9

Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 1.2

To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of...faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 1.2

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results.