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.

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.

On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.

Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty.

It is Mortifying to suppose it possible that a people able and zealous to contend with the Enemy should be reduced to fold their Arms for want of the means of defence; yet no resources that we know of, ensure us against this event.

The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.

My affections were first for my own country, then, generally, for all mankind

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.