Title page from Collected Works of James Wilson, vol. 2

Part of: Collected Works of James Wilson, 2 vols. Collected Works of James Wilson, vol. 2

This two-volume set brings together a collection of writings and speeches of James Wilson, one of only six signers of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and one of the most influential members of the federal Constitutional Convention in 1787. Wilson’s signal contribution was his advocacy for both a strong national government and an open and democratic political system, a position that set him apart from both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.

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Key Quotes

Natural Rights

I here close my examination into those natural rights, which, in my humble opinion, it is the business of civil government to protect, and not to subvert, and the exercise of which it is the duty of civil government to enlarge, and not to restrain. I go farther; and now proceed to show, that in…