To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.

An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.

Men have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit.

It ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention.

Evil succeeds when good men do nothing