School House Rock Preamble

Great Freemasons: Oliver Ellsworth (1945 - 1807)

"Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some it means anything, which enervate a necessary government; excite a jealousy of the rulers who are our own choice, and keep society in confu...sion for want of a power sufficiently concentered to promote good.
Oliver Ellsworth, Reference: Essays on the Constitution of the United States, Ford, ed. (146); original The Connecticut Courant


Oliver Ellsworth was an American lawyer and politician, a revolutionary against British rule, a drafter of the United States Constitution, and the third Chief Justice of the United States. While at the Federal Convention, Ellsworth moved to strike the word National from the motion made by Edmund Randolph of Virginia. Randolph had moved successfully to call the government the National Government of United States. Ellsworth moved that the government should continue to be called the United States Government. -wikipedia