For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

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.

The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty...

The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.