I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing.

Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of person under protection of habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected, these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.

Those who wish to be ignorant and free, believe in something that never was and never shall be.

My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.

The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.

To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself.

This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, not tolerate error as long as reason is left free to combat it.