Is one of the fairest portions of the globe to remain in a state of nature, the haunt of a few wretched savages, when it seems destined by the Creator to give support to a large population and to be the seat of civilization?

There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power.

All the lessons of history and experience must be lost upon us if we are content to trust alone to the peculiar advantages we happen to possess.

We admit of no government by divine right, believing that so far as power is concerned the Beneficent Creator has made no distinction amongst men; that all are upon an equality, and that the only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.

The liberties of a people depend on their own constant attention to its preservation.

Conscience, that vicegerent of God in the human heart, whose "still small voice" the loudest revelry cannot drown.

The chains of military despotism, once fastened upon a nation, ages might pass away before they could be shaken off.