Quote of the Day (Richard Brookhiser, on How Lincoln Cleared ‘The Mist’ of His Time)

“Life is all a mist for most of us. We believe a mixture of traditions, lessons, and current opinions: what we have grown up with, what we have been taught, and what we have heard in the street. These are not always the best guides to action….Lincoln, of all men, wanted not to live in a mist. In his worst moods he believed he was damned; at all times his mind taught him (wrongly probably) that he was doomed, predetermined, caught in a mesh of causes. But he always wanted to see, know, and understand. [Law partner William] Herndon noted the comprehensiveness of his curiosity, extending to clocks and omnibuses, but his greatest curiosity was about the great things. He wanted to know what America was, what men were, what God wanted. As he did when he was a boy, he would repeat the lessons of the founding fathers and God the Father until he knew them. What he learned was that all men are created free and equal, and that all men (the people) must understand and defend those truths. Then, because he was a politician, ambitious to lead, he did what he could to clear the mist.”—Historian Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln (2014)

Quote of the Day (John Jay, on How Justice is ‘Due to All’)

“Justice is indiscriminately due to all, without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.”—U.S. Founding Father (and first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) John Jay (1745-1829), Georgia v. Brailsford (1794)

Quote of the Day (Benjamin Franklin, Petitioning God for Virtues)

“Help me, Father!

 That I may have tenderness for the weak, and reverent respect for the ancient; that I may be kind to my neighbours, good-natured to my companions, and hospitable to strangers, Help me, O Father! 

 That I may be averse to craft and over-reaching, abhor extortion, perjury, and every kind of wickedness, Help me, O Father! 

That I may be honest and open-hearted, gentle, merciful, and good, cheerful in spirit, rejoicing in the good of others, Help me, O Father!”  —Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin  (1818)

Quote of the Day (Alexander Hamilton, on Voters’ ‘Reflection and Choice’)

“[I]t seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.” —Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers: No. 1 (1787)

Quote of the Day (Founding Father George Mason, on Corruption and Government)

“If we do not provide against corruption, our government will soon be at an end; nor would I wish to put a man of virtue in the way of temptation.”—George Mason (1725-1792), Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention, in The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Vol. 1, edited by Jonathan Elliot (1863)