Peace is the best time for improvement and preparation of every kind; it is in peace that our commerce flourishes most, that taxes are most easily paid, and that the revenue is most productive.

How prone all human institutions have been to decay; how subject the best-formed and most wisely organized governments have been to lose their check and totally dissolve; how difficult it has been for mankind, in all ages and countries, to preserve their dearest rights and best privileges, impelled as it were by an irresistible fate of despotism.

The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals.

National honor is national property of the highest value.

There is every reason to believe that our system will soon attain the highest degree of perfection of which human institutions are capable.

We must support our rights or lose our character, and with it, perhaps, our liberties.

The civil war which has so long prevailed between Spain and the Provinces in South America still continues, without any prospect of its speedy termination.