Your proposal raises the greatest mischief that can befall my country. You could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. Let me conjure you then, if you have any regard for your country, concern for your self or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, never communicate, as from yourself, or anyone else, a sentiment of the like nature.

By an ambitious chieftain, aiming only to aggrandize himself and establish his power, the subject might have been regarded in a different light; but the designs and actions of Washington centred in nobler objects, the freedom, tranquillity, and happiness of his country, in which he was to participate equally with every other citizen, neither seeking nor expecting any other preeminence than that of having been an instrument in the hand of Providence.

For it is fixed principle with me, that whatever is done should be done well.

Have the strength to be an honest person.

A people unused to restraint must be led, they will not be drove.

The best means of forming a manly, virtuous, and happy people will be found in the right education of youth. Without this foundation, every other means, in my opinion, must fail.

The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.