If virtue & knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great security.

Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.

And if a minister shall usurp the supreme and absolute govern ment of America, and set up his instructions as laws in the colonies, and their Governors shall be so weak or so wicked, as for the sake of keeping their places, to be made the instruments in putting them in execu tion, who will presume to say that the people have not a right, or that it is not their indispensible duty to God and their Country, by all rational means in their power to RESIST THEM.

Could I be assured that America would remain virtuous, I would venture to defy the utmost Efforts of Enemies to subjugate her.

Of how much importance is it, that the utmost pains be taken by the public to have the principles of virtue early inculcated on the minds even of children, and the moral sense kept alive.

It bodes very ill for government when men are exalted to places of high trust through their own solicitations. He only fills a place with dignity who is invited to it by his fellow citizens from the experience they have had of his adequate abilities.

Man's rights are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.