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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  James Wilson (1742–98)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 412
AUTHOR: James Wilson (1742–98)
QUOTATION: A government without the power of defence! it is a solecism.
ATTRIBUTION: JAMES WILSON, speech, Pennsylvania Convention on the adoption of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 11, 1787.—The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, ed. Jonathan Elliot, vol. 2, p. 520 (1836).

Wilson, the leader of the Federalist forces at the convention, was the only member of the Pennsylvania Convention who had been part of the Federal Convention writing the Constitution.
SUBJECTS: Defense