Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and the Laws let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honour; let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap. Let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges. Let it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs. Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation.

Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.

While ever a state of feeling such as this shall universally or even very generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom

Let [the Constitution] be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges, let it be written in primers, in spelling books and in almanacs, let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation.

Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.

let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty.

Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves liberty, ought to have it ever before his eyes, that he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America, and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving it.

...legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' <b>thus building a wall of separation between Church & State</b>. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I shall stand by the Union, and by all who stand by it. I shall do justice to the whole country...in all I say, and act for the good of the whole country in all I do. I mean to stand upon the Constitution. I need no other platform. I shall know but one country. The ends I aim at shall be my country's, my God's, and Truth's. I was born an American; I live an American; I shall die an American; and I intend to perform the duties incumbent upon me in that character to the end of my career. I mean to do this with absolute disregard of personal consequences. What are the personal consequences? What is the individual man, with all the good or evil that may betide him, in comparison with the good or evil which may befall a great country, and in the midst of great transactions which concern that country's fate? Let the consequences be what they will, I am careless. No man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer, or if he fall, in the defense of the liberties and constitution of his country.

If you're patriotic, stand up for the Bill of Rights because once they strip your rights from you, you will pay hell to get them back. You will and we're in the process of it right now.

A sacred respect for the Constitutional Law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.

"As precious as life itself is our heritage of individual freedom, for man's free agency is a God-given gift. In sensing our responsibility to preserve it for ourselves and our posterity, let students and patriotic people ever keep in mind the warning voice of James Russell Lowell proclaiming: 'Our American republic will endure only as long as the ideas of the men who founded it continue dominant.'

"There is a crying need today to have this truth heralded throughout the land that youth especially may appreciate and hold the freedom of the individual as sacred as did our revolutionary fathers

Cato Meanwhile we’ll sacrifice to liberty. Remember, O my friends, the laws, the rights, The generous plan of power delivered down, From age to age, by your renowned forefathers, 75 (So dearly bought, the price of so much blood,) Oh let it never perish in your hands! But piously transmit it to your children. Do thou, great liberty, inspire our souls, And make our lives in thy possession happy, 80 Or our deaths glorious in thy just defence.

We are by nature a courageous and adaptive people. Our forebears overcame great challenges, and so will we. We are already seeing the emergence of new and innovative defenses against the assault on reason. It is my greatest hope that those who read this book will choose to become part of a new movement to rekindle the true spirit of America. Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.” As John Adams wrote in 1780, ours is a government of laws and not of men. What is at stake today is that defining principle of our nation and thus the very nature of America. As the Supreme Court has written, “Our Constitution is a covenant running from the first generation of Americans to us and then to future generations.” The Constitution includes no wartime exception, though its framers knew well the reality of war. And as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes reminded us shortly after World War I, the Constitution’s principles have value only if we apply them in the difficult times as well as in those when it matters less. The question before us could be of no greater moment: Will we continue to live as a people under the rule of law as embodied in our Constitution? Or will we fail future generations by leaving them a Constitution far diminished from the charter of liberty we have inherited from our forebears? Our choice is clear.

2. We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.