“America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity.”

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.

That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.

All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.

In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.

The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.

By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.

Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.