The rights of the people to the exercise and fruits of their own industry can never be protected against the selfishness of rulers not subject to their control at short periods.

I served with General Washington in die Legislature of Virginia...and...with Doctor Franklin in Congress. I never heard neither of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point.

[The People] are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty.

I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property.

The great cause which divides our countries is not to be decided by individual animosities. The harmony of private societies cannot weaken national efforts.

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.

The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state.