Every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact (casus non faederis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits. Without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them.

The most effective way to find ourselves enslaved will not be done openly. If weakened we will sink gradually. I ask, who are the militia? They consist of the whole people, .... except a few public officers.

Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.

The failure of one thing is repaired by the success of another.

Everything is useful which contributes to fix the principles and practices of virtue.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience.