Startling Founding Fathers Quotes

by William Hogeland
(USA)

What a poor, ignorant, malicious, short-sighted, crapulous mass is Tom Paine's Common Sense.
-- John Adams

"(Paine's idea of government) is so democratical, without any restraint or even an attempt at any equilibrium or counterpoise, that it must produce confusion and every evil work."
-- John Adams

"The mob begin to think and to reason. Poor reptiles! it is with them a vernal morning, they are struggling to cast off their winter's slough, they bask in the sunshine, and ere noon they will bite, depend upon it."
-- Gouveneur Morris, founding father

"Our towns are but brick and stone, and mortar and wood. They, perhaps, may be destroyed. They are only the hairs of our heads. If sheared evere so close, they will grow again. We compare them not with our rights and liberties. We worship as our fathers worshipped, not idols which our hands have made."
-- John Dickinson, patriot and resister, opposed to American independence


These quotes reflect some of the founding conflicts and ironies fleshed out in my forthcoming book "Declaration: The Nine Tumultuous Weeks When America Became Independent, May 1- July 4, 1776" (Simon & Schuster, June 1, 2010)