6. Article II: The President
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“To God and posterity you are accountable for [your rights and your rulers]…Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights, and prostrating those institutions which our fathers delivered to you as a sacred palladium, and which by the blessing of God have been peculiarly beneficial to the order, peace and prosperity of this State…”
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“The interest of the people is one thing: it is the public interest. And where the public interest governs, it is a government of laws and not of men.
“The interest of a king or of a party is another thing: it is a private interest. And where private interest governs, it is a nation of men and not of laws.”
– John Adams
SECTION SIX: Article II – The President
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“I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man.”
– Thomas Jefferson, writing to Benjamin Rush
“I agree with you in your opinion of cities. Cowper the poet very happily expresses our ideas of them compared with the country. ‘God made the country; man made cities.’ I consider them in the same light that I do abscesses on the human body – as reservoirs of all the impurities of a community.”
– Benjamin Rush, writing back to Jefferson
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“Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state – it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”
– John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration of Independence
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”xxv
– John Adams
“A simple democracy is one of the greatest of evils. A democracy is a mobocracy.”xxvi
– Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration
SECTION SIX: Article II – The President
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“The Constitution enjoins an oath upon all the officers of the United States. This is a direct appeal to that God Who is the avenger of perjury. Such an appeal to Him is a full acknowledgement of His being and providence.”
– Oliver Wolcott, Declaration of Independence Signer
SECTION SIX: Article II – The President
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“The Constitution had provided that all the public functionaries of the Union, not only of the general [federal] but of all the state governments, should be under oath or affirmation for its support. The homage of religious faith was thus superadded to all the obligations of temporal law to give it strength.”
– John Quincy Adams
“An oath is an appeal to God, the Searcher of Hearts, for the truth of what we say and always supposes a calling down of His judgment upon us if we lie. Persons entering on public office are obliged to make oath that they will faithfully execute their trust. In vows, there is no party but God and the person himself who makes the vow. An oath, therefore, implies a belief in God and His Providence and is indeed an act of worship.”
– John Witherspoon, Declaration of Independence signer
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“If the president alone was vested with the power of appointing all officers, and was left to select a council for himself, he would be liable to be deceived by flatterers and pretenders to patriotism, who would have no motive but their own emolument [self-seeking profit and gain].”