Bad men cannot make good citizens.

If this be treason, make the most of it!

I look on that paper (the Constitution) as the most fatal plan that could possibly be conceived to enslave a free people.

You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your government.

Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?

My great objection to this government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights, or of waging war against tyrants.

This house protected by an armed citizen. There is absolutely nothing here worth dying for.