Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.

Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.

The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood?

Dependence begets subservience and paves the way for tyranny.

I sincerely join you in abjuring all political connection with every foreign power; and tho I cordially wish well to the progress of liberty in all nations, and would forever give it the weight of our countenance, yet they are not to be touched without contamination from their other bad principles. Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. In order to flourish, the tree of Liberty needs the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.