The fundamental principle of our constitution ... enjoins the sense of command, duty that the will of the majority shall prevail.

The inducements of interest for observing [neutral] conduct . . . has been to endeavour to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption, to that degree of strength and consistency, which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.

We can not guarantee success, we can strive to deserve it.

One of the difficulties in bringing about change in an organization is that you must do so through the persons who have been most successful in that organization, no matter how faulty the system or the organization is. To such persons, you see, it is the best of all possible organizations, because look who was selected by it ad look who succeeded most in it. Yet, these are the very people through whom we must bring about improvements.

The great mass of our citizens require only to understand matters rightly, to form right decisions.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favours or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of Commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with Powers so disposed; in order to give trade a stable course.

Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause: And I was not without hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy of ⟨the present⟩ age would have put an effectual stop to contentions of this Kind.