Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty.

I have now the gloomy prospect of retiring from office loaded with serious debts, which will materially affect the tranquility of my retirement.

I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles.

The contest is not between us and them, but between good and evil, and if those who would fight evil adopt the ways of evil, evil wins.

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

The whole body of the nation is the sovereign legislative, judiciary, and executive power for itself. The inconvenience of meeting to exercise these powers in person, and their inaptitude to exercise them, induce them to appoint special organs to declare their legislative will, to judge and to execute it. It is the will of the nation which makes the law obligatory.

They are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of the labor, property, and lives of their people.