The law for religious freedom... [has]put down the aristocracy of the clergy and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind.

But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?

Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched?

...It is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is in all this design, cause, and effect up to an Ultimate Cause-a Fabricator of all things, from matter and motion-their Preserver and Regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms-and their Regenerator into new and other forms.

By [the] operations [of public improvement] new channels of communication will be opened between the States; the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties.

The more a subject is understood, the more briefly it may be explained.

In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail to become a primary object.