preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people.

Still we did not expect to be without rubs and difficulties; and we have had them. First the detention of Western posts: then the coalition of Pilnitz, outlawing our commerce with France, and the British enforcement of the outlawry. In your day French depredations; in mine English, and the Berlin and Milan decrees: now the English orders of council, and the piracies they authorize. When these shall be over, it will the impressment of our seamen, or something else; and so we have gone on, and so we shall go on, puzzled and prospering beyond example in the history of man.

I like to see the people awake and alert.

...the science of calculation also is indispensable as far as the extraction of the square and cube roots: Algebra as far as the quadratic equation and the use of logarithms are often of value in ordinary cases: but all beyond these is but a luxury; a delicious luxury indeed; but not be in indulged in by one who is to have a profession to follow for his subsistence.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

Circumstances sometimes require, that rights the most unquestionable should be advanced with delicacy.