Noah Webster

"The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all of our civil constitutions and laws... All the miseries and evils which men suffer from: vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible." (History of the United States, 1832) --- Noah Webster founded and edited New York's first daily newspaper, compiled the first American dictionary and wrote textbooks, newspaper articles and taught school.