If any doubt has arisen as to me, my country [Virginia] will have my political creed in the form of a "Declaration &c." which I was lately directed to draw. This will give decisive proof that my own sentiment concurred with the vote they instructed us to give.

No other depositories of power [but the people themselves] have ever yet been found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed to their charge.

Excessive taxation . . . will carry reason & reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.

The power of making war often prevents it.

The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor I.

Honesty is the first chapter in the Book of wisdom. Let it be our endeavor to merit the character of a just nation.

Now I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial, mundane system.