A government, forever changing and changeable, is, indeed, in a state bordering upon anarchy and confusion.

It is important also to consider, that the surest means of avoiding war is to be prepared for it in peace.

Here shall the Press the People's right maintain, Unaw'd by influence and unbrib'd by gain; Here patriot Truth her glorious precepts draw, Pledg'd to Religion, Liberty, and Law.

It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects... that is was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject.

Every successive generation becomes a living memorial of our public schools, and a living example of their excellence.

The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people.

It yet remains a problem to be solved in human affairs, whether any free government can be permanent, where the public worship of God, and the support of religion, constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state in any assignable shape. The future experience of Christendom, and chiefly of the American states, must settle this problem, as yet new in the history of the world, abundant, as it has been, in experiments in the theory of government.