Monday, July 26, 2010

Founding quote of the day on the source of human rights

"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records.  They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."

- Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), "The Farmer Refuted," February 1775,  quoted in James H. Huston, The Founders on Religion:  A Book of Quotations (Princeton University Press:  1995), pgs. 196-97.