The man who loves his country on its own account, and not merely for its trappings of interest or power, can never be divorced for it, can never refuse to come forward when he finds that she is engaged in dangers which he has the means of warding off.

It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united.

There is no justification for taking away individuals' freedom in the guise of public safety.

The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism.

We are here lounging our time away, doing nothing, and having nothing to do. It gives me great regret to be passing my time so uselessly when it could have been so importantly employed at home.

I hold it to be one of the distinguishing excellences of elective over hereditary successions that the talents which nature has provided in sufficient proportion, should be selected by the society for the govenment of their affairs, rather than that this should be be transmitted through the loins of knaves and fools passing from the debauches of the table to those of the bed.

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.