We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

...is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? ...the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless.

It is an encouraging observation that no good measure was ever proposed which, if duly pursued, failed to prevail in the end.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not to the one now in power, for these great reformations i.e., emancipation of slaves and settlement of the Virginia constitution on a firmer and more permanent basis.

We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others.

I have ever deemed it more honorable and more profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.