The 28 Great Ideas That

Changed The World

From “The 5,000 Year Leap”
By W.Cleon Skousen
The Founders' Common Denominator
of Basic Beliefs
 One of the most amazing aspects of the
American story is that while the nation's
founders came from widely divergent
backgrounds, their fundamental beliefs were
virtually identical. They quarreled bitterly over
the most practical plan of implementing
those beliefs, but rarely, if ever, disputed
about their final objectives or basic
convictions.
The Founders' Common Denominator
of Basic Beliefs cont..
 Although the level of their formal training
varied from spasmodic doses of home
tutoring to the rigorous regimen of Harvard's
classical studies, the debates in the
Constitutional Convention and the writings of
the Founders reflect a far broader knowledge
of religious, political, historical, economic,
and philosophical studies than would be
found in any cross-section of American
leaders today.
Fundamental Principles

 The relative uniformity of fundamental

thought shared by these men included strong
and unusually well-defined convictions
concerning religious principles, political
precepts, economic fundamentals, and long-
range social goals. On particulars, of course,
they quarreled, but when discussing
fundamental precepts and ultimate objectives
they seemed practically unanimous.
Fundamental Principles cont…
 We will now proceed to carefully examine the
28 major principles on which the American
Founders established the first free people in
modern times. These are great ideas which
provided the intellectual, political, and
economic climate for the 5,000-year leap.
Idea #1
 The only reliable basis for sound government
and just human relations is Natural Law.
◦ "As one and the same Nature holds together and
supports the universe, all of whose parts are in
harmony with one another, so men are united in
Nature; but by reason of their depravity they
quarrel, not realizing that they are of one blood and
subject to one and the same protecting power. If
this fact were understood, surely man would live
the life of the gods!“ Cicero
Idea #1 cont…
 To Cicero, the building of a society on principles of
Natural Law was nothing more nor less than recognizing
and identifying the rules of "right conduct" with the laws
of the Supreme Creator of the universe.
 The Law of Nature or Nature's God is eternal in its basic

goodness; it is universal in its application. It is a code of

"right reason" from the Creator himself. It cannot be
altered. It cannot be repealed. It cannot be abandoned by
legislators or the people themselves, even though they
may pretend to do so. In Natural Law we are dealing with
factors of absolute reality. It is basic in its principles,
comprehensible to the human mind, and totally correct
and morally right in its general operation.
Idea #2
 A free people cannot survive under a
republican constitution unless they remain
virtuous and morally strong.
◦ Benjamin Franklin wrote: "Only a virtuous people
are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt
and vicious, they have more need of masters.“
◦ The people had an instinctive thirst for
independence, but there remained a haunting fear
that they might not be "good enough" to make it
work.
Idea #2 cont…
 "Our Constitution was made only for a moral
and religious people. It is wholly inadequate
to the government of any other.“ John Adams
A Warning from Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams, who is sometimes called the "father of the
revolution," wrote to Richard Henry Lee:
"I thank God that I have lived to see my country independent
and free. She may long enjoy her independence and
freedom if she will. It depends on her virtue."
Samuel Adams wrote:
"The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy the gift of
Heaven, let us become a virtuous people; then shall we
both deserve and enjoy it. while, on the other hand, if we
are universally vicious and debauched in our manners,
though the form of our Constitution carries the face of the
most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most
abject slaves."
Idea #3
 The most promising method of securing a virtuous
and morally stable people is to elect virtuous leaders.
◦ A favorite scripture of the day was Proverbs 29:2, which
says: "When the righteous are in authority, the people
rejoice; but when the wicked beareth rule, the people
mourn.“
◦ “I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest,
pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice, or ambition, or even the
desire of fame. If any of these had been my motive, my
conduct would have been very different. In every
considerable transaction of my public life, I have invariably
acted according to my best judgment, and I can look up to
God for the sincerity of my intentions.“ John Adams
Idea #4
 Without religion the government of a free
people cannot be maintained.
◦ President George Washington from his Farewell
Address: "Of all the dispositions and habits which
lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are
indispensable supports.... And let us with caution
indulge the supposition that morality can be
maintained without religion ... Reason and experience
both forbid us to expect that national morality can
prevail to the exclusion of religious principle. It is
substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary
spring of popular government.”
Idea #5
 All things were created by God, therefore
upon Him all mankind are equally dependent,
and to Him they are equally responsible.
◦ The Founders vigorously affirm throughout their
writings that the foundation of all reality is the
existence of the Creator, who is the designer of all
things in nature and the promulgator of all the laws
which govern nature.
Idea #6
 All men are created equal.
◦ The Founders wrote in the Declaration of
Independence that some truths are self-evident,
and one of these is the fact that all men are created
equal.
◦ Since people are different they can only be treated
as equals in the sight of God, in the sight of the
law, and in the protection of their rights.
Idea #6 cont…
 The Founders distinguished between equal rights
and other areas where equality is impossible. They
recognized that society should seek to provide equal
opportunity but not expect equal results; provide
equal freedom but not expect equal capacity;
provide equal rights but not equal possessions;
provide equal protection but not equal status;
provide equal educational opportunities but not
equal grades.
 As Alexander Hamilton said: "Inequality would exist

as long as liberty existed.... It would unavoidably

result from that very liberty itself."
Idea #7
 The proper role of government is to protect
equal rights, not provide equal things.
◦ The Founders recognized that the people cannot
delegate to their government the power to do
anything except that which they have the lawful
right to do themselves.
◦ By excluding the national government from
intervening in the local affairs of the people, the
Founders felt they were protecting the unalienable
rights of the people from abuse by an over-
aggressive government.
Idea #8
 Men are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights.
◦ The Founders did not believe that the basic rights of
mankind originated from any social compact, king,
emperor, or governmental authority. Those rights, they
believed, came directly and exclusively from God.
◦ John Adams said: "All men are born free and
independent, and have certain natural, essential, and
unalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the
right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties;
that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property;
in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and
happiness."
"The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it,
which ... teaches all mankind who will but consult it,
that being all equal and independent, no one ought to
harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions;
for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent
and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one
sovereign master, sent into the world by His order and
about His business; they are His property.... "And,
being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one
community of Nature, there cannot be supposed any
such subordination among us that may authorize us to
destroy one another.“ John Locke

Idea #8 Cont…
Idea #9
 To protect man's rights, God has revealed
certain principles of divine law.
◦ Blackstone said it was necessary for God to
disclose these laws to man by direct revelation:
"The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed
or divine law, and they are to be found only in the
Holy Scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are
found upon comparison to be really a part of the
original law of nature, as they tend in all their
consequences to man's felicity."
Idea #9 Cont…
 An analysis of the essential elements of
God's code of divine law reveals that it is
designed to promote, preserve, and protect
man's unalienable rights.
 These principles will be immediately

recognized as the famous Ten

Commandments. There are many additional
laws set forth in the Bible which clarify and
define these principles
Idea #10
 The God-given right to govern is vested in
the sovereign authority of the whole people.
◦ The Founders subscribed to the concept that rulers
are servants of the people and all sovereign
authority to appoint or remove a ruler rests with the
people.
◦ Alexander Hamilton declared: "The fabric of
American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of
the consent of the people. The streams of national
power ought to flow immediately from that pure,
original fountain of all legitimate authority.“
Idea #10 cont…
 James Madison declared: "The adversaries of
the Constitution seem to have lost sight of the
people altogether in their reasonings on this
subject; and to have viewed these different
establishments not only as mutual rivals and
enemies, but as uncontrolled by any common
superior in their efforts to usurp the authorities
of each other. These gentlemen must here be
reminded of their error. They must be told that
the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative
may be found, resides in the people alone."
Idea #11
 The majority of the people may alter or abolish a
government which has become tyrannical.
◦ "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient
causes; and, accordingly, all experience has shown, that
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the
forms to which they are accustomed. "But, when a long
train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the
same object, evinces a design to reduce them under
absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to
throw off such government, and to provide new guards
for their future security.“ Declaration of Independence
Idea #12
 The United States of America shall be a
republic.
◦ This principle is highlighted in the pledge of
allegiance when it says:
I pledge allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America
And to the Republic
For which it [the flag] stands....
Idea #12 cont…
 Democracy
◦ spectacles of turbulence
and contention
◦ incompatible with
personal security or the
rights of property
◦ short in their lives as
they have been violent in
their deaths
James Madison
 Republic
◦ a government in which
the scheme of
representation takes
place
◦ promises the cure for
which we are seeking
◦ extended over a large
region
A Contrast
Idea #13
 A constitution should be structured to
permanently protect the people from the
human frailties of their rulers.
◦ At the Constitutional Convention, the Founding
Fathers were concerned with the one tantalizing
question which no political scientist in any age had
yet been able to answer with complete satisfaction.
The question was, "How can you have an efficient
government but still protect the freedom and
unalienable rights of the people?"
Idea #14
 Life and liberty are secure only so long as the
right to property is secure.
◦ John Locke pointed out that the human family
originally received the planet earth as a common
gift and that mankind was given the capacity and
responsibility to improve it. Said he:
"God, who hath given the world to men in common,
hath also given them reason to make use of it to
the best advantage of life and convenience."
Idea #15
 The highest level of prosperity occurs when
there    is a free-market economy and a
minimum of government regulations.
◦ Four Laws of Economic Freedom
 1. The Freedom to try.    
 2. The Freedom to buy.    
 3. The Freedom to sell.    
 4. The Freedom to fail.
Idea #15 cont.
 1. Illegal Force in the market place to compel
purchase or sale of products.    
 2. Fraud in misrepresenting the quality, location,

or ownership of the item being sold or bought.    

 3. Monopoly which eliminates competition and

results in restraint of trade.

 4. Debauchery of the cultural standards and

moral fiber of society by commercial exploitation

of vice -- pornography, obscenity, drugs, liquor,
prostitution, or commercial gambling.
Idea #15 cont.
 "If the American people ever allow the banks
to control the issuance of their currency, first
by inflation and then by deflation, the banks
and corporations that will grow up around
them will deprive the people of all property
until their children will wake up homeless on
the continent their fathers occupied. The
issuing power of money should be taken from
the banks and restored to Congress and the
people to whom it belongs.“ Jefferson
Four Schools of Economic Thought
 There are four major schools of economic
thought today. An understanding of these
four schools of thought is necessary for an
understanding of economics.
 Marxist
 Keynesian
 Monetarist
 Austrian
 From The Concise Guide To Economics by Jim Cox.
 http://www.conciseguidetoeconomics.com
Marxist
 Based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels, who wrote in the mid to late 1800's.
 Marxist thought is based on economic

determinism wherein societies go through the

developmental stages of primitive
communism, slave systems, feudalism,
capitalism, socialism and finally communism.
 Each includes a class struggle which leads

inevitably to the next stage of societal

development.
Keynesian
 Named for the writings of John Maynard
Keynes, particularly his 1936 book The General
Theory.
 Keynesians call for government to manage
total demand--too little demand leads to
unemployment while too much demand leads
to inflation. Thus a dichotomy was established
in theory: either the problem of inflation
would attend or the problem of unemployment,
but never both simultaneously.
Keynesian cont.
 Keynes viewed the free market as generating
either too much or too little demand,
inherently. Thus the need (ever so
conveniently for the job prospects of
Keynesian economists!) for demand
management by government informed by the
wisdom of the Keynesians.
Monetarist
 Best represented by Milton Friedman and his followers
who retained the Keynesian "macro" approach.
 While viewing the economy in this manner Monetarists
lay the emphasis not on spending so much as on the
total supply of money--thus the name Monetarist.
 In other than the macro economic issues--inflation,
unemployment and the ups and downs of the business
cycle--Monetarists tend to take the individual actor as
the basis of their economic reasoning in areas such as
regulation, function of prices, advertising, international
trade, etc.
Austrian
 Begun by Carl Menger in the late 1800's and
was ultimately developed to its fullest by
Ludwig von Mises--both of Austria.
 Developed a body of thought with a

conscious emphasis on the acting individual

as the ultimate basis for making sense of all
economic issues. Along with this
individualist emphasis is a subjectivist view of
value and an orientation that all action is
inherently future-oriented.
Idea #16
 The government should be separated into
three    branches -- legislative, executive,
and judicial.
◦ "Again, there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be
not separated from the legislative and executive.
Were it joined with the legislative, the life and
liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary
control, for the judge would then be the legislator.
Were it joined to the executive power, the judge
might behave with violence and oppression.“
Montesquieu
Idea #17
 A system of checks and balances should be
adopted to prevent the abuse of power.

◦ James Madison - "The accumulation of all powers,

legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same
hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether
hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be
pronounced the very definition of tyranny.“
Idea #17 cont.
 Each department of government has the
responsibility to rise up and protect its
prerogatives by exercising the checks and
balances which have been provided. At the
same time, the people have the responsibility
to keep a closer watch on their
representatives and elect only those who will
function within Constitutional boundaries.
Idea #17 cont.
 Checks and Balances
◦ 1. The House of Representatives serves as a check
on the Senate since no statute can become law
without the approval of the House.    
◦ 2. At the same time the Senate (representing the
legislatures of the states before the 17th
Amendment) serves as a check on the House of
Representatives since no statute can become law
without its approval.    
◦ 3. A President can restrain both the House and the
Senate by using his veto to send back any bill not
meeting with his approval.
Idea #17 cont.
 Checks and Balances cont.
◦ 4. The Congress has, on the other hand, a check
on the President by being able to pass a bill over
the President's veto with a two-thirds majority of
each house.    
◦ 5. The legislature also has a further check on the
President through its power of discrimination in
appropriating funds for the operation of the
executive branch.    
◦ 6. The President must have the approval of the
Senate in filling important offices of the executive
branch.
Idea #17 cont.
 Checks and Balances cont.
◦ 7. The President must also have the approval of the
Senate before any treaties with foreign nations can
go into effect.    
◦ 8. The Congress has the authority to conduct
investigations of the executive branch to determine
whether or not funds are being properly expended
and the laws enforced.    
◦ 9. The President has a certain amount of political
influence on the legislature by letting it be known
that he will not support the reelection of those who
oppose his program.
Idea #17 cont.
 Checks and Balances cont.
◦ 10. The executive branch also has a further check on
the Congress by using its discretionary powers in
establishing military bases, building dams, improving
navigable rivers, and building interstate highways so as
to favor those areas from which the President feels he is
getting support by their representatives.    
◦ 11. The judiciary has a check on the legislature through
its authority to review all laws and determine their
constitutionality.    
◦ 12. The Congress, on the other hand, has a restraining
power over the judiciary by having the constitutional
authority to restrict the extent of its jurisdiction.
Idea #17 cont.
 Checks and Balances cont.
◦ 13. The Congress also has the power to impeach
any of the judges who are guilty of treason, high
crimes, or misdemeanors.    
◦ 14. The President also has a check on the judiciary
by having the power to nominate new judges
subject to the approval of the Senate.    
◦ 15. The Congress has further restraining power
over the judiciary by having the control of
appropriations for the operation of the federal
court system.
Idea #17 cont.
 Checks and Balances cont.
◦ 16. The Congress is able to initiate amendments to
the Constitution which, if approved by three-
fourths of the states, could seriously affect the
operation of both the executive and judicial
branches.    
◦ 17. The Congress, by joint resolution, can
terminate certain powers granted to the President
(such as war powers) without his consent.    
◦ 18. The people have a check on their Congressmen
every two years; on their President every four years;
and on their Senators every six years.
Idea #18
 The unalienable rights of the people are most
likely to be preserved if the principles of
government are set forth in a written constitution.
◦ The first written charter in America was in 1620, when
the Mayflower Compact came into being. Later the
charter concept evolved into a more comprehensive type
of constitution when Thomas Hooker and his associates
adopted the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut in 1639.
It is interesting that the Connecticut charter makes no
reference to the Crown or the British Government as the
source of its authority. It is a compact of "We, the
people."
Idea #19
 Only limited and carefully defined powers
should be delegated to government, all
others being retained in the people.
◦ No principle was emphasized more vigorously
during the Constitutional Convention than the
necessity of limiting the authority of the federal
government. Not only was this to be done by
carefully defining the powers delegated to the
government, but the Founders were determined to
bind down its administrators with legal chains
codified in the Constitution.
Idea #20
 Efficiency and dispatch require government to
operate according to the will of the majority,
but constitutional provisions must be made to
protect the rights of the minority.
◦ Thomas Jefferson referred to this in his first
inaugural address on March 4, 1801, when he said:
   "All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle,
that though the will of the majority is in all cases to
prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable;
that the minority possess their equal rights, which
equal laws must protect, and to violate would be
oppression."
Idea #20 cont.
 It is the responsibility of the minorities
themselves to learn the language, seek needed
education, become self sustaining, and make
themselves recognized as a genuine asset to
the community. Meanwhile, those who are
already well established can help. The United
States has built a reputation of being more
generous and helpful to newcomers than any
other nation. It is a reputation worth
preserving. Once upon a time, we were all
minorities.
Idea #21
 Strong local self-government is the keystone
to preserving human freedom.
◦ Political power automatically gravitates toward the
center, and the purpose of the Constitution is to
prevent that from happening. The centralization of
political power always destroys liberty by removing
the decision-making function from the people on
the local level and transferring it to the officers of
the central government.
Idea #21 cont.
 James Madison - "The powers delegated by the
proposed Constitution to the federal government
are few and defined. Those which are to remain in
the State governments are numerous and indefinite.
The former [federal powers] will be exercised
principally on external objects, as war, peace,
negotiation, and foreign commerce.... The powers
reserved to the several States will extend to all the
objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs,
concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the
people, and the internal order, improvement, and
prosperity of the State."
Idea #21 cont.
 A Prophecy
◦ "If the day should ever arrive (which God forbid!)
when the people of the different parts of our country
shall allow their local affairs to be administered by
prefects sent from Washington, and when the self
government of the states shall have been so far lost
as that of the departments of France, or even so
closely limited as that of the counties of England --
on that day the political career of the American
people will have been robbed of its most interesting
and valuable features, and the usefulness of this
nation will be lamentably impaired.“ – John Fiske
Idea #22
 A free people should be governed by law and
not by the whims of men.
◦ To be governed by the whims of men is to be subject
to the ever-changing capriciousness of those in power.
This is ruler's law at its worst. In such a society nothing
is dependable. No rights are secure. Things established
in the present are in a constant state of flux. Nothing
becomes fixed and predictable for the future.
◦ "No man will contend that a nation can be free that is
not governed by fixed laws. All other government than
that of permanent known laws is the government of
mere will and pleasure.“ - Adams
Idea #23
 A free society cannot survive as a republic
without a broad program of general education.
◦ Clear back in 1647 the legislature of Massachusetts
passed a law requiring every community of 50 families
[page 250] or householders to set up a free public
grammar school to teach the fundamentals of reading,
writing, ciphering, history, geography, and Bible
study. In addition, every township containing 100
families or more was required to set up a secondary
school in advanced studies to prepare boys for
attendance at Harvard.
Idea #23 cont.
 Liberty cannot be preserved without a general
knowledge among the people.... They have a
right, an indisputable, unalienable,
indefeasible, divine right to that most
dreaded and envied kind of knowledge -- I
mean, of the characters and conduct of their
rulers.“ – John Adams
Idea #23 cont.
 By 1831, when Alexis de Tocqueville of France
visited the United States, he was amazed by the
fruits of this effort. He wrote: "In New England every
citizen receives the elementary notions of human
knowledge; he is taught, moreover, the doctrines
and the evidences of his religion, the history of his
country, and the leading features of its
Constitution. In the states of Connecticut and
Massachusetts, it is extremely rare to find a man
imperfectly acquainted with all these things, and a
person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of
phenomenon."
Idea #23 cont.
 A textbook for children
◦ It was called a "Catechism on the Constitution,"
and it contained both questions and answers
concerning the principles of the American political
system. It was written by Arthur J. Stansbury and
published in 1828.
Idea #24
 A free people will not survive unless they stay strong.
◦ "Our security lies, I think, in our growing strength, both in
numbers and wealth; that creates an increasing ability of
assisting this nation in its wars, which will make us more
respectable, our friendship more valued, and our enmity
feared; thence it will soon be thought proper to treat us not
with justice only, but with kindness, and thence we may
expect in a few years a total change of measures with regard
to us; unless, by a neglect of military discipline, we should
lose all martial spirit, and our western people become as
tame as those in the eastern dominions of Britain [India],
when we may expect the same oppressions; for there is much
truth in the Italian saying, "Make yourselves sheep, and the
wolves will eat you.“ – Benjamin Franklin
Idea #24 cont.
 "To be prepared for war is one of the most
effectual means of preserving peace.“
 "A free people ought not only to be armed,

but disciplined; to which end a uniform and

well-digested plan is requisite.“
 "And their safety and interest require that

they should promote such manufactories as

tend to render them independent of others
for essentials, particularly military supplies.“
- George Washington
Idea #24 cont.
 "It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it [would be] in the
power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into
society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the
means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of
civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is
for the support, protection, and defense of those very
rights; the principal of which ... are life, liberty, and
property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in
terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the
eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would
absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom
being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man
to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.“ –
Samuel Adams
Idea #24 cont.
 "It is the business of America to take care of
herself; her situation, as you justly observe,
depends upon her own virtue.“ – Samuel
Adams
Idea #25
 "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship
with all nations -- entangling alliances with
none.“
◦ "Friendship with all ... alliances with none." --
Thomas Jefferson    These are the words of Thomas
Jefferson, given in his first inaugural address.
Idea #25 cont.
 As the United States emerged on the world scene
in the eighteenth century, American leaders took a
united and fixed position against entangling
alliances with any foreign powers unless an attack
against the United States made such alliances
temporarily necessary.    This was the Founders'
doctrine of "separatism." This was far different from
the modern term of "isolationism." The latter term
implies a complete seclusion from other nations, as
though the United States were to be detached and
somehow incubated in isolation from other nations.
Idea #26
 The core unit which determines the strength of
   any society is the family; therefore, the
government should    foster and protect its
integrity.
◦ The American Founders felt that the legal, moral, and
social relationships between husband and wife were
clearly established by Bible law.
◦ In theory, God's law made man first in governing his
family, but as between himself and his wife he was merely
first among equals. The Apostle Paul pointed out in his
epistle to the Corinthians:    Neither is the man without
the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the
Lord. (1 Corinthians 11:11.)
Idea #26 cont.
 It will be appreciated that the strength and
stability of the family is of such vital
importance to the culture that any action by
the government to debilitate or cause
dislocation in the normal trilateral structure
of the family becomes, not merely a threat to
the family involved, but a menace to the very
foundations of society itself.
Idea #27
 The burden of debt is as destructive to
freedom as subjugation by conquest.
◦ "Think what you do when you run in debt; you give
to another the power over your liberty." --
Benjamin Franklin    
◦ Slavery or involuntary servitude is the result of
either subjugation by conquest or succumbing to
the bondage of debt.
Idea #28
 The United States has a manifest destiny to
be an example and a blessing to the entire
human race.
◦ "I always consider the settlement of America with
reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand
scene and design in Providence for the illumination
of the ignorant, and    the emancipation of the
slavish part of mankind all over the earth." - John
Adams
Idea #28 cont.
 "With equal pleasure I have often taken notice
that Providence has been pleased to give this one
connected country to one united people -- a
people descended from the same ancestors,
speaking the same language, professing the same
religion, attached to the same principles of
government, very similar in their manners and
customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms,
and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a
long and bloody war, have nobly established their
general liberty and independence.“ – John Jay
Idea #28 cont.
 "This country and this people seem to have
been made for each other, and it appears as
if it was the design of Providence that an
inheritance so proper and convenient for a
band of brethren, united to each other by the
strongest ties, should never be split into a
number of unsocial, jealous, and alien
sovereignties.“ – John Jay