Shall we imitate the example of those nations who have gone from a simple
to a splendid Government? Are those nations more worthy of our imitation? What can make an adequate satisfaction to them for the loss they have
suffered in obtaining such a Government—for the loss of their liberty? If
we admit this Consolidated Government, it will be because we like a great
splendid one. Some way or other we must be a great and mighty empire; we
must have an army, and a navy, and a number of things: When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty,
Sir, was then the primary object.
Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Ratifying Convention (1788)
Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation.
No theoretical checks, no form of government, can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without
any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and
intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these
men; so that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.
James Madison, in the Virginia Ratifying Convention (1788)
The Bill of Rights provides a fitting close to the parenthesis around the
Constitution that the preamble opens. But the substance is a design of
government with powers to act and a structure to make it act wisely and
responsibly. It is in that design, not in its preamble or its epilogue, that
the security of the American civil and political liberty lies.
Herbert J. Storing, ‘‘The Constitution and the Bill of Rights,’’
in M. Judd Harmon, ed., Essays on the Constitution (1978)