We have the self-evident right to regulate our trade according to our own will and our own interest . . . . This right can be denied to no independent nation.

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

Nothing is so contagious as opinion, especially on questions which, being susceptible of very different glosses, beget in the mind a distrust of itself.

Democracy is the most vile form of government.

It is vain to say that enlightened statesmen will always be able to adjust their interests. Enlightened men will not always be at the helm.

The management of foreign relations appears to be the most susceptible of abuse of all the trusts committed to a Government, because they can be concealed or disclosed, or disclosed in such parts and at such times as will best suit particular views; and because the body of the people are less capable of judging, and are more under the influence of prejudices, on that branch of their affairs, than of any other. Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.

In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example . . . of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the practice of the world, may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most triumphant epoch of its history, and the most consoling presage of its happiness.