“By their actions, the Founding Fathers made clear that their primary concern was religious freedom, not the advancement of a state religion. Individuals, not the government, would define religious faith and practice in the United States. Thus the Founders ensured that in no official sense would America be a Christian Republic. Ten years after the Constitutional Convention ended its work, the country assured the world that the United States was a secular state, and that its negotiations would adhere to the rule of law, not the dictates of the Christian faith. The assurances were contained in the Treaty of Tripoli of 1797 and were intended to allay the fears of the Muslim state by insisting that religion would not govern how the treaty was interpreted and enforced. John Adams and the Senate made clear that the pact was between two sovereign states, not between two religious powers.”
― Franklin T. Lambert, The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America
“Jefferson’s fear was that without such a system of public education, the country would end up being ruled by a privileged elite that would recycle itself through a network of private institutions that entrenched their advantages.”
“In general, we have been too generous in the gift of office and power… to men who do not understand the genius of America and who have little awareness of the backgrounds of the American way of life…. Most of us will agree that it makes little difference where or when a man was born if he had this vivid sense of American history, if he has learned to put Country above Party. … if freedom means more than personal security and if he refuses to tolerate appeasement of tyranny as the price of peace.”
The Platinum Dragon 