Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established.

[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.

The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

I learn with great concern that [one] portion of our frontier so interesting, so important, and so exposed, should be so entirely unprovided with common fire-arms. I did not suppose any part of the United States so destitute of what is considered as among the first necessaries of a farm-house.

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.

But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?

God grant that men of principle shall be our principal men.