An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication .

Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

We love and we value peace; we know its blessings from experience. We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities.

There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him.

I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.