We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.

I can scarcely contemplate a more incalculable evil than the breaking of the Union into two or more parts.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

Public employment contributes neither to advantage nor happiness. It is but honorable exile from one's family and affairs.

I rejoice when I hear of young men of virtue and talents, worthy to receive and likely to preserve the splendid inheritance of self- government, which we have acquired and shaped for them.