“Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained . . . for it is the only safeguard of our liberties. And not to Democrats alone do I make this appeal, but to all who love these great and true principles.”
–Abraham Lincoln

"Whilst the last members were signing [the Constitution], Doctor Franklin, looking towards the President's chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art, a rising, from a setting, sun. I have, said he, often and often, in the course of the Session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.”
–Benjamin Franklin (1787)

“The free system of government we have established is so congenial with reason, with common sense, and with a universal feeling, that it must produce approbation and a desire of imitation, as avenues may be found for truth to the knowledge of nations.”
–James Madison (1826)

“If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”
–George Washington (1796)

“Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained,., for it is the only safeguard of our liberties. And not to Democrats alone do I make this appeal, but to all who love these great and true principles.”
–Abraham Lincoln

Whilst the last members were signing [the Constitution], Doctor Franklin, looking towards the President's chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art, a rising, from a setting, sun. I have, said he, often and often, in the course of the Session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.”
–Benjamin Franklin (1787)

“The free system of government we have established is so congenial with reason, with common sense, and with a universal feeling, that it must produce approbation and a desire of imitation, as avenues may be found for truth to the knowledge of nations.”
–James Madison (1826)

“If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”
–George Washington (1796)

The Delegates of the Constitutional Convention, also known as the Founding Fathers, were a collective of fifty-five appointed individuals from the original thirteen colonies who attended the Constitutional Convention sessions, although only thirty-nine actually signed the Constitution. Some of its most notable member are George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin.