A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.

I flatter myself [we] have in this country extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind.

The people shall not be restrained from peacefully assembling and consulting for their common good, nor from applying to the legislature by petitions, or remonstrances for redress of their grievances.

To provide employment for the poor, and support for the indigent, is among the primary, and, at the same time, not least difficult cares of the public authority.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

The real difference of interests, lay not between large and small, but between the Northern and Southern states. The institution of slavery and its consequences formed a line of discrimination.

An oath-the strongest of religious ties.