A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens, from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest.

I am not myself apt to be alarmed at innovations recommended by reason. That dread belongs to those whose interests or prejudices shrink from the advance of truth and science.

I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.

The opinions of men should not be the object of any government. Our civil rights are no more dependent on our religious beliefs than they are dependent upon our thoughts about geometry or physics!

The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism.

That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

It is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.