If Our Nation Is Ever

Is There No Virtue Among Us? If There Be Not, We Are In A Wretched Situation. No Theoretical Checks-no Form Of Government Can Render Us Secure. To Suppose That Any Form Of Government Will Secure Liberty Or Happiness Without Any Virtue In The People, Is A Chimerical Idea, If There Be Sufficient Virtue And Intelligence In The Community, It Will Be Exercised In The Selection Of These Men. So That We Do Not Depend On Their Virtue, Or Put Confidence In Our Rulers, But In The People Who Are To Choose Them.

An Armed And Trained Militia Is The Firmest Bulwark Of Republics - That Without Standing Armies Their Liberty Can Never Be In Danger, Nor With Large Ones Safe.

[regarding Legislative Assemblies,] The Number Ought At Most To Be Kept Within A Certain Limit, In Order To Avoid The Confusion And Intemperance Of A Multitude. In All Very Numerous Assemblies, Of Whatever Characters Composed, Passion Never Fails To Wrest The Scepter From Reason. Had Every Athenian Citizen Been A Socrates, Every Athenian Assembly Would Still Have Been A Mob.

We've Staked Our Future On Our Ability To Follow The Ten Commandments With All Our Heart.

Nothing Is So Contagious As Opinion, Especially On Questions Which, Being Susceptible Of Very Different Glosses, Beget In The Mind A Distrust Of Itself.