"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." - Preamble to the Constitution

"Let our government be like that of the solar system. Let the general government be like the sun and the states the planets, repelled yet attracted, and the whole moving regularly and harmoniously in several orbits." - John Dickinson (Delaware Delegate), 1787 

"I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such, because I think a central government is necessary for us... I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution." - Benjamin Franklin, (closing day of the convention in 1787)

"I consider the difference between a system founded on the legislatures only, and one founded on the people, to be the true difference between a league or treaty and a constitution." - James Madison (at the Constitutional Convention, 1787)