The dominion which the banking institutions have obtained over the minds of our citizens...must be broken, or it will break us.

Doubts and jealousies often beget the facts they fear.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

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.

The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union.

By... [selecting] the youths of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the State of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use if not sought for and cultivated.