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.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

Never use two words when one will do.

I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both body and mind.

I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.

Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.

The art of reasoning becomes of first importance. In this line antiquity has left us the finest models for imitation; I should consider the speeches of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus, as pre-eminent specimens of logic, taste, and that sententious brevity which, using not a word to spare, leaves not a moment for inattention to the hearer. Amplification is the vice of modern oratory.