The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and in-grafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.

A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful Land, traversing all the seas with the rich production of their Industry.

Stock dealers and banking companies, by the aid of a paper system, are enriching themselves to the ruin of our country, and swaying the government by their possession of the printing presses, which their wealth commands and by any other means, not always honorable to the character of our countrymen.

Resolved ... that it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism - free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence.

My principle is to do whatever is right, and leave consequences to him who has the disposal of them.

Question with boldness even the existence of a god.

I believe in both a creative and personal God, a divinely ordered universe, that man has an innate moral sense, and that Jesus was a great moral teacher, perhaps the greatest the world has witnessed.