I believe the states can best govern our home concerns, and the general government our foreign ones.

I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural.

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

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.

The States should be watchful to note every material usurpation on their rights; to denounce them as they occur in the most peremptory terms; to protest against them as wrongs to which our present submission shall be considered, not as acknowledgments or precedents of rights, but as a temporary yielding to the lesser evil, until their accumulation shall overweigh that of separation.

Government governed least is government governed best.

I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army. They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct themselves. The people are the only censors of their governors; and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution.