To form a new Government, requires infinite care, and unbounded attention; for if the foundation is badly laid the superstructure must be bad.

..the establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive that induced me to the field of battle.

Your love of liberty -- your respect for the laws -- your habits of industry -- and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness.

Speak not injurious words neither in jest nor earnest; scoff at none, although they give occasion.

No compact among men... can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other.

The prospect, that a good general government will in all human probability be soon established in America, affords me more substantial satisfaction; than I have ever before derived from any political event. Because there is a rational ground for believing that not only the happiness of my own countrymen, but that of mankind in general, will be promoted by it.

The power under the Constitution will always be in the people.