"The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make or alter their constitution of government."--George Washington.
"Let us then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind and labor for the welfare of the country."--Thomas Jefferson.
"The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are parts of one consistent whole, founded upon one and the same theory of government,--that the people are the only legitimate source of power, and that all just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed."--John Quincy Adams.
11 This description almost perfectly fits the making of the Mayflower Compact in the cabin of the ship Mayflower on November 11, 1620. Those Pilgrim Fathers drew up an agreement which was the first attempt at a written constitution in the New World. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, of 1638, are generally conceded to be the oldest real constitution in America.
12 When Jefferson wrote "all men are created equal", he did not mean that all infant children have equal capacities for learning or accomplishment, but that all children ought to be given equal opportunities by the government of a republic. He meant that in a republic all children, whether rich or poor, whether of the aristocracy or of the common people, had great opportunities to be good and great men and women. He meant that a poor boy born in the Kentucky mountains and a rail splitter in the woods of Illinois had the opportunity to become President of the United States.
"The Declaration of Independence was not a mere temporary expedient, but is an enunciation of fundamental truths intended for all time."--William J. Bryan.
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, _conceived in liberty_, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."--Abraham Lincoln.
"Where slavery is, there _liberty_ cannot be and where _liberty_ is, slavery cannot be."--Abraham Lincoln.
"Respect for its (the government's) authority, compliance with its laws, acquiesence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true Liberty."--George Washington.
"Liberty--on its positive side, denotes the fulness of individual existence; on its negative side it denotes the necessary restraint on all, which is needed to promote the greatest possible amount of liberty for each."--Bouvier's _Law Dictionary_, Vol. I. p. 217.