The dead should not rule the living

All authority belongs to the people.

The purse of the people is the real seat of sensibility. Let it be drawn upon largely, and they will then listen to truths which could not excite them through any other organ.

The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It had only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially republican.

I have overlived the generation with which mutual labors & perils begat mutual confidence and influence.

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

The law of self-preservation is higher than written law.