If America wants concessions, she must fight for them. We must purchase our power with our blood.

The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.

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

While we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess, and to observe, the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to them whose minds have not yielded to the evidence which has convinced us.

Of the liberty of conscience in matters of religious faith, of speech and of the press; of the trial by jury of the vicinage in civil and criminal cases; of the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; of the right to keep and bear arms.... If these rights are well defined, and secured against encroachment, it is impossible that government should ever degenerate into tyranny.

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

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.