Thomas Jefferson attempted to enshrine the brilliance of his philosophical forebears in our founding document; in 1825, he explained, “it was intended to be an expression of the American mind. . . . All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.”
