The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves and united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only.

State a moral case to a plowman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

What justice would there be to take this life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.

I had no idea, however, that in Pennsylvania, the cradle of toleration and freedom of religion, it [fanaticism] could have arisen to the height you describe. This must be owing to the growth of Presbyterianism. The blasphemy of the five points of Calvin, and the impossibility of defending them, render their advocates impatient of reasoning, irritable, and prone to denunciation.

A properly functioning democracy depends on an informed electorate.

Man ... feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs not merely at an election, one day in the year, but every day.

A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry