the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

One imputation in particular has been repeated till it seems as if some at least believed it: that I am an enemy to commerce. They admit me a friend of agriculture, and suppose me an enemy to the only means of disposing of its produce.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It had only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially republican.

I thank heaven that the 4th. of July is over. It is always a day of great fatigue to me, and of some embarrassments from improper intrusions and some from unintended exclusions.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous. . . .