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The Founders

Founders
Brethren
References

The Founders:
    William Pierce: Well known to be the greatest philosopher of the present age; -- all the operations of nature he seems to understand, --the very heavens obey him, and the Clouds yield up their Lightning to be imprisoned in his rod. (Pierce, William on Benjamin Franklin, 1787)
    Patrick Henry: Eloquence has been defined to be the art of persuasion. If it included persuasion by convincing, Mr. Madison was the most eloquent man I ever heard. (Henry, Patrick on James Madison, November 12, 1790)
    Thomas Jefferson: Hamilton was indeed a singular character. Of acute understanding, disinterested, honest, and honorable in all private transactions, amiable in society, and duly valuing virtue in private life, yet so bewitched & perverted by the British example, as to be under thoro' conviction that corruption was essential to the government of a nation. (Jefferson, Thomas on Alexander Hamilton in The Anas, 1791-1806)
    John Marshall: First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in humble and enduring scenes of private life. Pious, just humane, temperate, and sincere; uniform dignified, and commanding; his example was as edifying to all around him as were the effects of that example lasting … correct throughout, vice shuddered in his presence and virtue always felt his fostering hand. The purity of his private charter gave effulgence to his public virtues…. Such was the man for whom our nation morns (Marshall, John official eulogy of George Washington, delivered by Richard Henry Lee, December 26, 1799)
    Thomas Jefferson: His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. (Jefferson, Thomas on George Washington in a letter to Dr. Walter Jones, January 2, 1814)
    James Madison: He was certainly one of the most learned men of the age. It may be said of him as has been said of others that he was a "walking Library," and what can be said of but few such prodigies, that the Genius of Philosophy ever walked hand in hand with him. (Madison, James on Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Samuel Harrison Smith,November 4, 1826)
 The Brethren:
    Neal A. Maxwell: The raising up of that constellation of “wise” Founding Fathers to produce America’s remarkable Constitution, whose rights and protection belong to “every man,” was not a random thing either (see D&C 101:77–78, 80). One historian called our Founding Fathers “the most remarkable generation of public men in the history of the United States or perhaps of any other nation” (Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Birth of the Nation [1968], 245). Another historian added, “It would be invaluable if we could know what produced this burst of talent from a base of only two and a half million inhabitants” (Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam [1984], 18). (Neal A. Maxwell, “Encircled in the Arms of His Love,” Ensign, Nov. 2002, 16 )
    L. Tom Perry: Where else in the world do we find a group of men together in one place at one time who possessed greater capacity and wisdom than the founding fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and others? But it was not to their own abilities that they gave the credit. They acknowledged Almighty God and were certain of the impossibility of their success without his help. (L. Tom Perry, “God’s Hand in the Founding of America,” New Era, July 1976, 45 )
    Ezra Taft Benson: Every Latter-day Saint should love the inspired Constitution of the United States—a nation with a spiritual foundation and a prophetic history—which nation the Lord has declared to be his base of operations in these latter days.
    The framers of the Constitution were men raised up by God to establish this foundation of our government, for so the Lord has declared by revelation in these words:
    “I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood.” (D&C 101:80) (Ezra Taft Benson, “The Constitution — A Glorious Standard,” Ensign, May 1976, 91 )
    Willford Woodruff: Two weeks before I left St. George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them. Said they, "You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God." These were the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and they waited on me for two days and two nights. . . . I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon brother McCallister to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and fifty other eminent men, making one hundred in all, including John Wesley, Columbus, and others; I then baptized him for every President of the United States, except three; and when their cause is just, somebody will do the work for them. (Journal of Discourses, Volume 26)
 References:
Founders
Brethren
References