A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason.

He [Washington] has often declared to me that he considered our new constitution as an experiment on the practicability of republican government, and with what dose of liberty man could be trusted for his own good; that he was determined the experiment should have a fair trial, and would lose the last drop of his blood in support of it. And these declarations he repeated to me the oftener and the more pointedly.

Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error... They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only... If [free enquiry] be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

No one has a right to obstruct another exercising his faculties innocently for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature.

I don't want them to kill no hog . . . . I want a man to go to that chair, on his own two feet.