“Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free Government.” —George Washington (1796)
*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.