The NT, compared with the Old, is like a farce of one act.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.

It is a position not to be controverted, that the earth ... was and ever would have continued to be, the COMMON PROPERTY OF THE HUMAN RACE.

As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith.

We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.

Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.

To bring the matter to one point, Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us? Whoever says, No, to this question, is an independent, for independency means no more than this, whether we shall make our own law, or, whether the king, the greatest enemy which this continent hath, or can have, shall tell us there shall be no laws but such as I like.