Where everyman is participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year but everyday, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte.
If the happiness of the mass of mankind can be secured at the expense of a little tempest now and then, or even of a little blood, it will be a precious purchase.
Many are the exercises of power reserved to the States wherein a uniformity of proceeding would be advantageous to all. Such are quarantines, health laws, regulations of the press, banking institutions, training militia, etc., etc.
Every gentleman plays billiards, but someone who plays billiards too well, is no gentleman.
I have nothing but contempt for anyone who can spell a word in only one way.
I have done for my country and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God – my daughter to my country.
The federal government is our servant, not our master.
What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general government.
A superintending power to maintain the Universe in its course and order.
Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.
I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries of comforts of life...
There is preparing, I hope, under the auspices of heaven, a way for a total emancipation.
The best defense of democracy is an informed electorate.
I am a real Christian, that is to say, a cisciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator.
I considered the British as our natural enemies, and as the only nation on earth who wished us ill from the bottom of their souls. And I am satisfied that were our continent to be swallowed up by the ocean, Great Britain would be in a bonfire from one end to the other.
Money, not morality, constitutes the principle of commercial nations.
Earnestly recommended to all officers and soldiers, diligently to attend divine services.
No country and no people can be free and ignorant at the same time.
Courts love the people always, as wolves do the sheep.
Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.