Though [the people] may acquiesce, they cannot approve what they do not understand.

The human character, we believe, requires in general constant and immediate control to prevent its being biased from right by the seductions of self-love.

Religions are all the same...Based upon legends and fantasies

We are overdone with banking institutions, which have banished the precious metals, and substituted a more fluctuating and unsafe medium... These have withdrawn capital from useful improvements and employments to nourish idleness... These are evils more easily to be deplored than remedied.

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

The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife.

That peace, safety, and concord may be the portion of our native land, and be long enjoyed by our fellow-citizens, is the most ardent wish of my heart, and if I can be instrumental in procuring or preserving them, I shall think I have not lived in vain.