"Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth." ~George Washington
General Orders, Headquarters, New York (2 July 1776)
"Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness!
Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system,
superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence,
and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world! "Alexander Hamilton