Nothing but free argument, raillery and even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.

If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.

Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

The general desire of men to live by their heads rather than their hands, and the strong allurements of great cities to those who have any turn for dissipation, threaten to make them here, as in Europe, the sinks of voluntary misery.

I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.

It is my disposition to maintain peace until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself.