„After full experience of the insufficiency of the existing federal government, you are invited to deliberate upon a New Constitution for the United States of America.The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences, nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and the welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of the empire, in many respects, the most interesting in the world. It has been frequentlyrekarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we arrived may, with propriety, be regarded as the period when that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act, may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.“

Publius (Alexander Hamilton), Oktober 1787
Alexander Hamilton/John Jay/James Madison, The Federalist,
The Gideon Edition (1818), neu hrsg. von G.W. Carey/J. McClellan, 2001, S. 1.