I jotted this note inside the front cover of my copy of The Federalist. Because the cover no longer closes all the way, this phrase peeks out at me when I am crossing the room to pick up my knitting or to go to the bathroom or to stop the cat from eating something dangerous. I don’t remember why I wrote it down – whether I was paraphrasing something “Publius” wrote or whether I was reacting to something our founding fathers were themselves revering. I’d like to think it was the latter, but who knows. All I know for sure is that I wrote it, and now it haunts me often, in weird ways.