Excessive taxation . . . will carry reason & reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.

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

Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.

The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man

There are two amendments only which I am anxious for: 1. A bill of rights, which it is so much the interest of all to have that I conceive it must be yielded...2. The restoring of the principle of necessary rotation, particularly to the Senate and Presidency, but most of all to the last.

There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.

What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.