“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man….The sum of it all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people” — Samuel Adams, American patriot and organizer of the Boston Tea Party in an essay published in The Advertiser (1748).
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