The Essential Wisdom of the Founding Fathers

By Carol Kelly-Gangi

Thoughts on patriotism, peace, politics, and more from Washington, Hamilton, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, and others—in their own words.

America’s Founding Fathers were men of words as well as deeds. Keenly intelligent and deeply committed to their ideals and to the cause for American independence, they left us a legacy of addresses and documents whose profound ideas still speak with authority. The Essential Wisdom of the Founding Fathers collects more than three hundred inspiring and instructive quotations from the men who were present at our nation’s inception. Drawn from their speeches, essays, proclamations, and declarations, the thematically arranged contents reflect the subjects of greatest import to the founders as they forged our new republic. In these selections:

• George Washington confides that the best way to ensure peace is to be well prepared to meet one’s enemy
• Alexander Hamilton warns of the dangers of limiting freedom of the press
• John Adams reasons that true liberty cannot endure without the people’s knowledge of the character and conduct of their rulers, and more

This volume includes extracts from texts published in the founders’ lifetimes in which they exchange ideas on the meaning of justice, the evils of slavery, the role of the patriot, and the pitfalls of politics. Here, too, are candid excerpts from correspondence in which they express fears about the perilous times they face, and their hopes for a brighter future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781435133068

Book preview

To John with love.

Fall River Press and the distinctive Fall River Press logo are registered trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Compilation © 2009 by Carol Kelly-Gangi

Cover art © Francis G. Mayer/Corbis (George Washington and Benjamin Franklin photographs); © Burstein Collection/Corbis (Thomas Jefferson photograph); © Anja Kaiser/Istockphoto (background)

Cover design by Igor Satanovsky

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Introduction

The Revolutionary War

The Founding of the Nation

Government and Democracy

The Presidency

Freedom and Rights

Equality and Justice

Religion, Morality, and Virtue

Peace, War, and the Military

Politics and Patriotism

Family and Friends

Wisdom of the Founding Fathers

About the Founding Fathers

In this unsettling time in our nation’s history, the words of the Founding Fathers take on a heightened resonance as Americans struggle to find common ground on such complex issues as the meaning of patriotism, the scope of an individual’s rights—be it equal rights, privacy rights, or civil rights—as well as defining the appropriate role of government in our nation today.

The Essential Wisdom of the Founding Fathers gathers together more than three hundred quotations from those men who were leading figures in the founding of the United States; those who participated in the Revolutionary War; and those who drafted and signed the documents upon which the fledgling nation was founded.

Of course, the main contributors in any collection focused on the Founding Fathers are the giants of American history such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Paine. Also included, however, are selections from other patriots, men lesser known to us perhaps, but important figures nonetheless in the singular roles they played in the struggle for American independence. What comes through from each of these men is their undying passion for the cause of liberty; their personal belief in a higher power, coupled with their equally fervent belief in religious tolerance; and their deep devotion to family and domestic happiness.

In the selections, John Adams confides to his wife about the toil and blood that will be required to gain freedom; Thomas Paine rails against the tyranny to which the colonists have been subjected; Benjamin Rush recalls the fear and silence that permeated the hall when the men signed their names to the Declaration of Independence; George Washington poignantly describes the atrocious hardships his troops have patiently endured at Valley Forge; and Thomas Jefferson reflects on the malleability of the Constitution. In other selections the Founders speak about the role of government; the meaning of patriotism; and the horrors of slavery—despite the fact that many of them were slave owners themselves. Here, too, are pithy extracts, many from Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack, on such varied subjects as diet and exercise, marriage, procrastination, and personal finance.

The Essential Wisdom of the Founding Fathers invites readers to view our nation through the eyes of the men who were there from the beginning, and who struggled mightily for the liberties that are now a part of the American landscape. Perhaps the words of John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, written in 1818, sum up just how bold and innovative this American experiment was, and how far we have come towards realizing the ideals that the Founding Fathers only dreamed of for themselves:

When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

—Carol Kelly-Gangi

Rumson, New Jersey, 2009

Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all!

By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall!

—John Dickinson, The Liberty Song, 1768

This is the most magnificent movement of all! There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the patriots that I greatly admire. The people should never rise without doing something to be remembered—something notable and striking. This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important consequences, and so lasting, that I can’t but consider it as an epocha in history!

—John Adams, his diary entry on the Boston Tea Party, December 17, 1773

The die is cast. The people have passed the river and cut away the bridge.

—John Adams, writing about the Boston Tea Party, December 1773

Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a halter intimidate. For, under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we