“Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.”

“The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.”

“Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other.”

“If our Founding Fathers wanted us to care about the rest of the world, they wouldn't have declared their independence from it.”

“If you can swing it, getting arrested is the high point of the Fourth of July. Also, the reading of the Declaration of Independence is exciting. (Yes, the Declaration was written two years after Essex is officially set. No, this doesn't stop us.) […] Essex stayed open late that night, for the holiday. Our patriotism cannot be constrained by an eight-hour workday.”

“I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. --February 22, 1861”