"You will have heard before this reaches you of the Commencement of a Civil War; the End of it perhaps neither myself, nor you, who are much younger, may live to see."  -Ben Franklin, 1775

"Almost half the signers of the Declaration of Independence had some form of seminary training or degree."  -A Patriot's History of the United States

"France... came away from the conflict with... a terrific debt, which played no small part in its own revolution in 1789."  -A Patriot's History of the United States

"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country..."  -Thomas Paine, 1776