“If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws – the first growing out of the last.” —Alexander Hamilton (1794)
*Image: “The Committee of Five” [detail] from The Declaration of Independence by John Turnbull, 1818 [U.S. Capitol Rotunda, Washington, DC]. Presenting the Declaration [to John Hancock, not shown here] are John Adams on the left, Thomas Jefferson in the center, and Benjamin Franklin on the right, with Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston behind.