When two parties make a compact, there results to each a power of compelling the other to execute it.

The evidence of [the] natural right [of expatriation], like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of every man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings or legislators, but under the King of Kings.

One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it.

Government as well as religion has furnished its schisms, its persecutions and its devices for fattening idleness on the earnings of the people.

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it.