Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree.

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.

If it is believed that these elementary schools will be better managed by the governor and council or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it is a belief against all experience.

The issuing power [of money] should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.

I do verily believe that if the principle were to prevail of a common law being in force in the United States (which principle possesses the general government at once of all the powers of the state governments, and reduces us to a single consolidated government), it would become the most corrupt government on the earth.

The day is not distant when we must bear and adopt [the abolition of slavery], or worse will follow.