Founding Father Quote of the Day

We went to Church to hear the Word, But to our Grief we found Our Ears oppress’d with things absurd, A vain and empty sound.

Am I a fool - a Romantic quixot - Or is there a Constitutional defect in the American Mind? Were it not for yourself and a few others, I would adopt the reveries of De Paux as substantial truths, and would say with him that there is something in our climate which belittles every Animal human or brute.

It has been, by rejecting the evidence, that the word, or works of God in the creation, affords to our senses, and the action of our reason upon that evidence, that so many wild and whimsical systems of faith, and of religion, have been fabricated and set up. There may be many systems of religion, that so far from being morally bad, are in many respects morally good: but there can be but ONE that is true; and that one, necessarily must, as it ever will, be in all things consistent with the ever existing word of God that we behold in his works. But such is the strange construction of the Christian system of faith, that every evidence the heavens affords to man, either directly contradicts it, or renders it absurd.

It was generally agreed that the objects of the Union could not be secured by any system founded on the principle of a confederation of sovereign States.

Where the great and rich will have the greatest influence in the public councils, they will continually make unequal laws in their own favour, unless the poorer majority unite, which they rarely do, set up an opposition to them, and run them down by making unequal laws against them. In every society where property exists, there will ever be a struggle between rich and poor.

Many a Man’s own Tongue gives Evidence against his Understanding.

No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above Justice? Above all shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice?

Let prejudices, unreasonable jealousies, and local interest yield to reason and liberality. Let us look to our National character, and to things beyond the present period. No Morn ever dawned more favourable than ours did - and no day was ever more clouded than the present! Wisdom, & good examples are necessary at this time to rescue the political machine from the impending storm.

A Republican Government without knowledge and Virtue is a body without a Soul - A Mass or Corruption and Putrifaction, food for Worms.

Great distance, in either time or space, has wonderful power to lull and render quiescent the human mind. Pleasures to be enjoyed, or pains to be endured, after we shall be dead and gone, are but little regarded, even in our own cases, and much less in the cases of others.

Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change in circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

There are in every country some magnificent charities established by individuals. It is however but little that any individual can do when the whole extent of the misery to be relieved be considered. He may satisfy his conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he has, and that all will relieve but little. It is only by organizing civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pullies, that the whole weight of misery can be removed.

In 1730, I wrote a piece on the other side of the question, which began with laying for its foundation this fact: “That almost all men in all ages and countries, have at times made use of prayer.” Thence I reasoned, that if all things are ordained, prayer must among the rest be ordained. But as prayer can produce no change in things that are ordained, praying must then be useless and an absurdity. God would therefore not ordain praying if everything else was ordained. But praying exists, therefore all things are not ordained, etc. This pamphlet was never printed, and the manuscript has been long lost. The great uncertainty I found in metaphysical reasonings disgusted me, and I quitted that kind of reading and study for others more satisfactory.

Our minds seem to be measured by countries when we are men, as they are by places, when we are children, and until something happens to disentangle us from the prejudice, we serve under it without perceiving it.

History they Say Should open the Secret Springs of Action and devellope the concealed motives of the Actors. Do you believe there ever was Such a History? I wish you would try your hand at it. Draw the Characters, write the lives of Jay, Clinton, Hamilton and Burr, trace their motives and describe their Intrigues. Jay who is no Intriguer, has been the constant object of the Jealousy Envy and intrigues of the other three. Hamilton, supported by Englishmen, Scotchmen old Tories, and by Washington and his Army of friends as well as Soldiers, was the most operative Character, And Burr had subtlety enough to wriggle himself up, between them, sometimes Sympathizing with one and sometimes with another of them. The Intrigues of New York have decided the Politicks of the Continent, and Alexander Hamilton was at the bottom of it all.

I agree with you likewise in your wishes to keep religion and government independant of each Other. Were it possible for St. Paul to rise from his grave at the present juncture, he would say to the Clergy who are now so active in settling the political Affairs of the World. “Cease from your political labors your kingdom is not of this World. Read my Epistles. In no part of them will you perceive me aiming to depose a pagan Emperor, or to place a Christian upon a throne. Christianity disdains to receive Support from human Governments.

The Dutch say that without an habit of thinking of every doit, before you spend it, no Man can be a good Merchant, or conduct Trade with Success. This I believe is a just Maxim in general. But I would never wish to see a Son of Mine govern himself by it. It is the sure and certain Way for an industrious Man to be rich. It is the only possible Way for a Merchant to become the first Merchant, or the richest Man in the Place. But this is an Object I hope none of my Children ever aim at.