I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations, in examples of justice and liberality.

Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country. - March 15, 1783

My ardent desire is... to keep the United States free from political connexions with every other Country. To see that they may be independent of all, and under the influence of none.

It's only natural for unbridled partisanship, unrestrained by allegiance to a greater cause, to lead to chaos.

The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern, some of them in our country and under our own eyes.

There is an indissoluble union between a magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity.

We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.