It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, independence now and independence forever.

Liberty consists in wholesome restraint

There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from anothe quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing.

The farmers are the founders of civilization.

If God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendency; if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will.

Every breeze wafts intelligence from country to country, every wave rolls it and gives it forth, and all in turn receive it. There is a vast commerce of ideas, there are marts and exchanges for intellectual discoveries, and a wonderful fellowship of those individual intelligences which make up the minds and opinions of the age.

Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.