[T]he foundation of a great Empire is laid, and I please myself with a persuasion, that Providence will not leave its work imperfect.

It is much easier at all times to prevent an evil than to rectify mistakes.

Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in the Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the opposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

My death has not yet quite arrived, but it is near and inevitable as night follows day.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted, by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.

No people can be bound to acknowledge the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the united States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency