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The Top Story: The "New" Constitution
Viewpoints On The New Constitution and On What Government is About...
| "What a poor pitiful figure will America make in their eyes!
How liable would she become not only to their contempt, but to their outrage; and
how soon would dear-bought experience proclaim that when a perople or family divide, it
never fails to be against themselves." John Jay, Federalist Number IV |
"You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you
are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured." Patrick Henry |
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| "They...divided the powers, that each [branch of the legislature]
might be a check upon the other...and I presume every reasonable man will agree to
it." Alexander Hamilton |
"'Tis really astonishing that the same people, who have just emerged
from a long and cruel war in defense of liberty, should now agree to fix an elective
depostism upon themselves and their posterity." Richard Henry Lee (Author of Letters from the Federal Farmer) |
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| "I like much the general idea of framing a government, which should
go on of itself, peaceably, without needing continual recurrence of the State
legislatures...I will now tell you what I do not like. First, the omission of a bill
of rights...Let me add, that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against
every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should
refuse." Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison from Paris, December 20, 1787 |
The Federalist Papers |