“The example of changing a constitution by assembling the wise men of the state, instead of assembling armies, will be worth as much to the world a the former examples we have given them. The constitution, too, which was the result of our deliberations unquestionably the wisest ever yet presented to men.”
Letter to David Humphreys, 18 March 1789, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Albert Ellery Bergh, 7:322.