My most earnest wish is to see the republican element of popular control pushed to the maximum of its practicable exercise. I shall then believe that our government may be pure and perpetual.

What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.

[The Federal Convention] is really an assembly of demigods.

Aristocrats fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society.

A single zealot may commence prosecutor, and better men be his victims.

The precepts of philosophy and of the Hebrew code, laid hold of actions only. (Jesus) pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man, erected his tribunal in the regions of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head.

...It is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is in all this design, cause, and effect up to an Ultimate Cause-a Fabricator of all things, from matter and motion-their Preserver and Regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms-and their Regenerator into new and other forms.