Purity of morals [is] the only sure foundation of public happiness in any country.

I wish from my soul that the legislature of this State could see the policy of a gradual Abolition of Slavery.

I never say anything of a man that I have the smallest scruple of saying to him.

To the security of a free Constitution it [knowledge] contributes in various ways: by teaching the people themselves to know and to value their own rights, to discern and provide against invasions of them, to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority, between burdens proceeding from a disregard to their convenience and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of society.

`Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free Government.

Since the death of my father four years ago, our lives have become difficult, and I must help my family.

I am very glad to hear that the Gardener has saved so much of the St foin seed, & that of the India Hemp. Make the most you can of both, by sowing them again in drills... Let the ground be well prepared, and the Seed (St foin) be sown in April. The Hemp may be sown any where.