The Declaration of Independence . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.

It is time enough, for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere [in the propagation of religious teachings] when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.

Though [the people] may acquiesce, they cannot approve what they do not understand.

The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.

Who will govern the governors? There is only one force in the nation that can be depended upon to keep the government pure and the governors honest, and that is the people themselves. They alone, if well informed, are capable of preventing the corruption of power, and of restoring the nation to its rightful course if it should go astray. They alone are the safest depository of the ultimate powers of government.

Religious leaders will always avail themselves of public ignorance for their own purpose.

Every man has a commission to admonish, exhort, convince another of error.