This Day the Congress has passed the most important Resolution, that ever was taken in America.                    — John Adams 

On July 4, we celebrate the adoption by the Second Continental Congress of one of our nation’s most revered symbols of liberty — the Declaration of Independence.

It is common for us to think of the signers of this document — our founding fathers — as a stodgy bunch of old guys in quaint clothing. Not so. These men were innovative radicals who represented a new and different type of government — one based on the will of the people, not on an accident of birth.

By signing this revolutionary political document, the nation’s founders risked much, as had the American Revolution gone completely wrong, this document pretty much told the British whom to round up. They did so because they believed that although our country had the right to govern itself, the radical action needed to be explained. Therefore, they crafted a document “intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.” (Jefferson)

The following is a selection of quotes that offer a glimpse into the minds of these inventive and surprisingly modern thinkers.     
 

THOMAS JEFFERSON 

“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.” 

“Every generation needs a new revolution.” 

“My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.” 

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” 
 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

“In the general course of human nature, a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.” 

“Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.” 

“Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.” 

JOHN ADAMS 

“But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations.... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.” 

“Laws for the liberal education of the youth, especially of the lower class of the people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.” 

“The deliberate union of so great and various a people in such a place, is without all partiality or prejudice, if not the greatest exertion of human understanding, the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen.” 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

“AMERICA: ...every act of oppression will sour their tempers, lessen greatly if not annihilate the profits of your commerce with them, and hasten their final revolt; for the seeds of liberty are universally found there, and nothing can eradicate them.” 

“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” 

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” 

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.”  

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”