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

If our Trade be taxed, why not our Lands, or Produce in short, everything we possess? They tax us without having legal representation.

Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.

It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.

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

'Revelation assures us that 'righteousness exalteth a nation.' Communities are dealt with in this world by the wise and just Ruler of the Universe. He rewards or punishes them according to their general character. The diminution of public virtue is usually attended with that of public happiness, and the public liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals.