[Tomas] Jefferson believed that the United States was a chosen nation with a special responsibility to spread democracy around the world.

History is the queen of the humanities. It teaches wisdom and humility, and it tells us how things change through time.

I think [John's Adams] descriptions of the personalities of [Benjamin] Franklin and [Tomas] Jefferson and others were pretty accurate. It is only when he felt he was wronged by them that he lets loose his anger and resentment.

[John] Adams was arguing that a separate social order existed that needed to be embodied in senates and his fellow Americans could not accept this and accused him rightly of being obsessed with the English constitution.

It was [John's Adams] Massachusetts constitution if anything that influenced people.

The Massachusetts constitution was written much later than the other revolutionary state constitutions, and thus it avoids some of the earlier mistakes. The executive is stronger, with a limited veto; the senate is more formidable; and the judiciary is independent.

[John Adams' writings] had indicted the United States for slavishly copying the English constitution by erecting bicameral legislatures in their state constitutions, most drafted in 1776.