No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and . . . . their minds are to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and to be deterred from those of vice . . . . These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure and order of government.

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

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

Who will govern the governors? There is only one force in the nation that can be depended upon to keep the government pure and the governors honest, and that is the people themselves. They alone, if well informed, are capable of preventing the corruption of power, and of restoring the nation to its rightful course if it should go astray. They alone are the safest depository of the ultimate powers of government.

Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power.

I long to be in the midst of the children, and have more pleasure in their little follies than in the wisdom of the wise.

A Man's management of his own purse speaks volumes about character