Agriculture is at the same time the most tranquil, healthy, and independent occupation.

Our ancestors ... possessed a right, which nature has given to all men, of departing from the country in which chance, not choice has placed them.

If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom.

Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.

The contradictory experiments of chemists leave us at liberty to conclude what we please. My conclusion is, that art has not yet invented sufficient aids to enable such subtle bodies [air, light, &c.] to make a well-defined impression on organs as blunt as ours; that it is laudable to encourage investigation but to hold back conclusion.

Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils of misgovernment.