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

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

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

Our country may be likened to a new house. We lack many things, but we possess the most precious of all - liberty!

The crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain, our national character. You are considered by them as not only having rendered important service in our own revolution, but as being, on a more extended scale, the friend of human rights, and able advocate of public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas Paine, the Americas are not, nor can they be, indifferent.

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

The great increase of our population throughout the Union will alone produce an important effect, and in no quarter will it be so sensibly felt as in those in contemplation.