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1778
on 1/5/1778
"Under all those disadvantages no men ever show more spirit or prudence than ours. In my opinion nothing but virtue has kept our army together through this campaign."
on 5/5/1778
"I am free to acknowledge that His Powers are full great, and greater than I was disposed to make them. Nor, Entre Nous, do I believe they would have been so great had not many of the members cast their eyes towards General Washington as President; and shaped their Ideas of the Powers to be given to a President, by their opinions of his Virtue."
on 5/12/1778
"We have duties, for the discharge of which we are accountable to our Creator and benefactor, which no human power can cancel. What those duties are, is determinable by right reason, which may be, and is called, a well informed conscience."
on 5/12/1778
"When men form themselves into society, and erect a body politic or State, they are to be considered as one moral whole, which is in possession of the supreme power of the State. This supreme power is composed of the powers of each individual collected together, and voluntarily parted with by him."
on 5/12/1778
"We have duties, for the discharge of which we are accountable to our Creator and benefactor, which no human power can cancel. What those duties are, is determinable by right reason, which may be, and is called, a well informed conscience. What this conscience dictates as our duty, is so; and that power which assumes a control over it, is an usurper; for no power can be pleaded to justify the control, as any consent in this case is void."
 | on 5/28/1778 . Map of the Battle of Barren Hill by Michel Capitaine du Chesnoy, aide-de-camp to Lafayette |
on 6/5/1778
"O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, no longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all?"
on 6/5/1778
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."
on 6/14/1778
"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, - who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia."
on 6/25/1778
"[T]he people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them."
 | on 6/28/1778 . Map of the Battle of Monmouth by Michel Capitaine du Chesnoy, aide-de-camp to Lafayette |
on 11/16/1778
"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harms way."
 | with on 12/19/1778 . John Ward Dunsmore's depiction of Lafayette (right) and Washington at Valley Forge |
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