There Is No Greater Guilt Than The

Without Wishing To Damp The Ardor Of Curiosity Or Influence The Freedom Of Inquiry, I Will Hazard A Prediction That, After The Most Industrious And Impartial Researchers, The Longest Liver Of You All Will Find No Principles, Institutions Or Systems Of Education More Fit In General To Be Transmitted To Your Posterity Than Those You Have Received From Your Ancestors.

We Shall Convince France And The World, That We Are Not A Degraded People, Humiliated Under A Colonial Spirit Of Fear And A Sense Of Inferiority, Fitted To Be The Miserable Instruments Of Foreign Influence, And Regardless Of National Honor, Character, And Interest.

. . . Thirteen Governments [of The Original States] Thus Founded On The Natural Authority Of The People Alone, Without A Pretence Of Miracle Or Mystery, And Which Are Destined To Spread Over The Northern Part Of That Whole Quarter Of The Globe, Are A Great Point Gained In Favor Of The Rights Of Mankind.

The People, When They Have Been Unchecked, Have Been As Unjust, Tyrannical, Brutal, Barbarous, And Cruel, As Any King Or Senate Possessed Of Uncontrollable Power. The Majority Has Eternally, And Without One Exception, Usurped Over The Rights Of The Minority.

Fear Is The Foundation Of Most Governments; But It Is So Sordid And Brutal A Passion, And Renders Men In Whose Breasts It Predominates So Stupid And Miserable, That Americans Will Not Be Likely To Approve Of Any Political Institution Which Is Founded On It.