I will to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is.

A man is accountable to no person for his doings.

[The passage of the Sugar Act] set people a thinking, in six months, more than they had done in their whole lives before.

There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the Law of Nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free, and they have it ordinarily in their power to make themselves so, if they please.

I pray God I may never be brought to the melancholy trial, but if ever I should, it will be then known how far I can reduce to practice, principles, which I know to be founded in truth.

And I take this opportunity to declare, that... I will to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is. It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, - the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book.

The people's safety is the law of God.