James Madison
speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention — 1788
Category: Virtue
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.
James Wilson
Of the Study of the Law in the United States — 1790
Category: Virtue
Illustrious examples are displayed to our view, that we may imitate as well as admire. Before we can be distinguished by the same honors, we must be distinguished by the same virtues. What are those virtues? They are chiefly the same virtues, which we have already seen to be descriptive of the American character -- the love of liberty, and the love of law.
Benjamin Rush
On the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic — 1806
Category: Religion and Morality
[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.
John Adams
the Novanglus — 1775
Category: Human Nature
Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the "latent spark"... If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?
John Adams
letter to Mercy Warren — 1776
Category: Virtue
Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics. There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honour, power and glory, established in the minds of the people, or there can be no republican government, nor any real liberty: and this public passion must be superiour to all private passions.
Samuel Adams
letter to James Warren — 1775
Category: Virtue
Since private and publick Vices, are in Reality, though not always apparently, so nearly connected, of how much Importance, how necessary is it, that the utmost Pains be taken by the Publick, to have the Principles of Virtue early inculcated on the Minds even of children, and the moral Sense kept alive, and that the wise institutions of our Ancestors for these great Purposes be encouraged by the Government. For no people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.
John Marshall
official eulogy of George Washington, delivered by Richard Henry Lee — 1799
Category: Founders on Founders
First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in humble and enduring scenes of private life. Pious, just humane, temperate, and sincere; uniform dignified, and commanding; his example was as edifying to all around him as were the effects of that example lasting; correct throughout, vice shuddered in his presence and virtue always felt his fostering hand. The purity of his private charter gave effulgence to his public virtues;. Such was the man for whom our nation morns
Thomas Jefferson
letter to Peter Carr — 1785
Category: Virtue
Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you... From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death.
Colonel John Brooks
letter to a friend — 1778
Category: War for Independence
Under all those disadvantages no men ever show more spirit or prudence than ours. In my opinion nothing but virtue has kept our army together through this campaign.
John Adams
Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law — 1756
Category: Education
It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.
Noah Webster
On Education of Youth in America — 1790
Category: Education
It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.
Samuel Adams
letter to James Warren — 1775
Category: Education
No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.
John Adams
An Essay on Man's Lust for Power — 1763
Category: Democracy
[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.
Benjamin Rush
letter to His Fellow Contrymen: On Patriotism — 1773
Category: Patriotism
Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families.
James Madison
Federalist No. 57 — 1788
Category: Political Leaders
The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.
Fisher Ames
Review of the Pamphlet on the State of the British Constituiton — 1807
Category: The Press
We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know not how, its efficient auxiliary. It follows the substance like its shade; but while a man walks erect, he may observe that his shadow is almost always in the dirt. It corrupts, it deceives, it inflames. It strips virtue of her honors, and lends to faction its wildfire and its poisoned arms, and in the end is its own enemy and the usurper's ally, It would be easy to enlarge on its evils. They are in England, they are here, they are everywhere. It is a precious pest, and a necessary mischief, and there would be no liberty without it.
John Adams
letter in response to Rush letter above — 1811
Category: Religion and Morality
Religion and Virtue are the only Foundations, not only of Republicanism and of all free Government, but of Social Felicity under all Governments and in all the Combinations of human Society.
Tench Coxe
An American Citizen, No.2 — 1787
Category: Senate
As our president bears no resemblance to a king so we shall see the Senate has no similitude to nobles. First, not being hereditary, their collective knowledge, wisdom, and virtue are not precarious. For by these qualities alone are they to obtain their offices, and they will have none of the peculiar qualities and vices of those men who possess power merely because their father held it before them.
Richard Henry Lee
letter to Colonel Martin Pickett — 1786
Category: Virtue
It is certainly true that a popular government cannot flourish without virtue in the people.
Samuel Adams
letter to James Warren — 1779
Category: Virtue
A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.
Thomas Jefferson
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 17 — 1781
Category: Virtue
Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen, people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.
Thomas Paine
Common Sense — 1776
Category: Virtue
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
Noah Webster
On the Education of Youth in America — 1788
Category: Virtue
The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities; and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.
George Washington
First Inaugural Address — 1789
Category: Virtue
[T]here exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity.
John Adams
letter to Zabdiel Adams — 1776
Category: Virtue
The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a greater Measure than they have it now, they may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.
