We shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves; and consequently within what may be deemed the period of a generation, or the life of the majority.

The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all.

Legislators invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind.

Sensibility of mind is indeed the parent of every virtue, but it is the parent of much misery, too.

It is surely time for men to think for themselves, and to throw off the authority of names so artificially magnified.

This formidable censor of the public functionaries [the press], by arraigning them at the tribunal of public opinion, produces reform peaceably, which must otherwise be done by revolution. It is also the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man and improving him as a rational, moral, and social being.

The lamp of war is kindled here, not to be extinguished but by torrents of blood.