The great pillars of all government and of social life [are] virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone, that renders us invincible.

Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?

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?

Liberty ought to be the direct end of your government.

The militia is our ultimate safety. We can have no security without it. The great object is that every man be armed.

Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

We should transmit to posterity our abhorrence of slavery.