A few years' experience will convince us that those things which at the time they happened we regarded as our greatest misfortunes have proved our greatest blessings.

I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials.

The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.

The question then will be, whether a consolidated government can preserve the freedom and secure the rights of the people.

I charge [my sons] never to let the motives of private interest or ambition to influence them to betray, nor the terrors of poverty and disgrace, or the fear of danger or of death deter them from asserting the liberty of their country, and endeavoring to transmit to their posterity those sacred rights to which themselves were born

Habituated from our Infancy to trample upon the Rights of Human Nature, every generous, every liberal Sentiment, if not extinguished, is enfeebled in our Minds.

If I can only live to see the American union firmly fixed, and free governments well established in our western world, and can leave to my children but a crust of bread and liberty, I shall die satisfied.