The Founding Fathers & the classics: the stream of classical history was one of the primary tributaries of American political thought at the time of the Founding.(History--Struggle For Freedom)

I have but one lamp by which my feel are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.-- Patrick Henry March 23, 1775

p Patrick Henry's view of the value of history was not unique. The men who framed our constitutional republic agreed with French author Charles Pinot Duclos, who observed:

 
   We see on the theater of the world a 
   certain number of scenes which succeed 
   each other in endless repetition: 
   where we see the same faults followed 
   regularly by the same misfortunes, 
   we may reasonably think that 
   if we could have known the first we 
   might have avoided the others. The 
   ...