"Sole depositories of the remains of human liberty, our duty to ourselves, to posterity, and to mankind call on us by every motive which is sacred or honorable, to watch over the safety of our beloved country, during the troubles which agitate and convulse the residue of the world, and to sacrifice to that all personal and local considerations. While the boasted energies of monarchy have yielded to easy conquest the people they were to protect, should our fabric of freedom suffer no more than the slight agitations we have experienced, it will be an useful lesson to the friends, as well as to the enemies of self-government." - Thomas Jefferson to the New York State Legislature, 1809