"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
- The Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776

"The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government."
- George Washington's Farewell Address, September 17, 1796

"All quiet along the Potomac to-night,
No sound save the rush of the river,
While soft falls the dew on
the face of the dead,-
The picket's off duty forever."

- Ethel Lynn Beers The Picket Guard, Stanza 6 September 30, 1861

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
- Abraham Lincoln The Gettysburg Address, 1863

"In a chariot of light from the region of the day,
The Goddess of Liberty came
She brought in her hand as
a pledge of her love,
the plant she named Liberty Tree."

- Thomas Paine July, 1775

"What then is the American, this new man?...He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world."
- Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur from Letters from an American Farmer

"A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the Government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the Nation which belongs to the Nation that sets it forth."
- Henry Ward Beecher from The American Flag

"Yesterday, the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that those United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States."
- John Adams Letter to Mrs. Adams, July 3, 1776

"In the beginning, all the world was America."
- John Locke, 17th Century

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