Using the written and spoken words of the founders of the United States, this work aims to provide a compact rendition of the central ideas in our founding documents. The works of the founders are eloquent and presented without comment or explanation. The book extends beyond the work done in Independence Hall by Jefferson, Penn, Hamilton, Adams and Madison, to employ the words of those less known—Phillis Wheatley, Paul Cuffe and Hiawatha. The central idea in the founding of America was liberty, its indispensability for the robust life of citizens, and its need for protection by a government of special design. Looking ahead, the founders anticipated that Americans ever would need to guard their liberty because of its long history of fragility before the forces intrinsic to all governments.

Thomas Jefferson

1743-1826

"The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm..." —"The Moral Sense," August 10, 1787

"The opinions of men are not the object of civil enforcement nor under its jurisdiction." —Virginia Statue on Religious Freedom

William Penn

1644-1718

"Liberty of conscience is every man's natural right... Nothing can be more unreasonable than to compel men to believe against their belief." —East Friesland, December 14, 1674

Phillis Wheatley

1750s-1784

"For in every human breast, God has implanted a principle we call love of freedom. It is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance" —Letter to Samson Occam

Benjamin Banneker

1731-1806

"Sir, I freely admit and cheerfully acknowledge that I am of the African race, and in that color which is natural to them of the deepest dye... How pitiable it is to reflect that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind and of his equal and impartial distribution of those rights and privileges that you should at the same time counteract his mercies by detaining through fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression" —Letter to Thomas Jefferson, August 19, 1791

John Dickinson

1732-1808

"Free people, therefore, can never be too quick in observing, nor too firm in opposing, the beginnings of alterations ... respecting the institutions formed for their security." —Letter VI, Philadelphia, January 4, 1768

"A perpetual jealousy respecting liberty is absolutely requisite in all free states" —Letter XI, Philadelphia, February 8, 1768

The design of our forbears has endured for twelve generations. It has gotten us through challenges of war and civil war and the assassination of leaders. Many problems have yielded to the design of the founders. Nonetheless, we can examine the degree to which aspects of the design remain practical.

For example, to a degree which the founders may not have recognized, their design depended upon the sustained vigilance of the citizenry. It depended upon a constant watch for subtle, or not so subtle, intrusions on liberty. It depended upon an alertness to notice such intrusions even when the king's ministers might speak as familiar images on broadcast programs of news...

Having with only the recollections of the experiences of our forbears, are we able to maintain their design for the protection of liberty? Having only the recollections of their reasoning, can we sustain the persisting vigilance?...

Liberty has been fragile before the march of time. Imagine yourself a steward of liberty in our time. Perhaps our forbears started a work not yet done.   —Norris Hansell