the artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent it’s ascendancy.

I have great hope that some patriotic spirit will, at a favorable moment, call it up, and make it the key-stone of the arch of our government.

But even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of Man. science had liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example had kindled feelings of right in the people. an insurrection has consequently begun, of science, talents & courage against rank and...

but our machines have now been running for 70. or 80. years, and we must expect that, worn as they are, here a pivot, there a wheel, now a pinion, next a spring, will be giving way: and however we may tinker them up for awhile, all will at length surcease motion.

what institution is insusceptible of abuse in wicked hands?

On the subject of the history of the American revolution, you ask who shall write it? who can write it? and who ever will be able to write it? nobody; except merely it’s external facts. all it’s councils, designs and discussions, having been conducted by Congress with closed doors, and no member,...

I request you to procure for me 4. gross of bottles, the strong kind preferred & 12. gross of corks, the best, as bad ones is throwing away our liquor. there are two only of the Milton watermen who can be trusted with any thing which can be plundered or adulterated, Gilmer & Johnson....

I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving Fear astern. my hopes indeed sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.

bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. education & free discussion are the antidotes of both. we are destined to be a barrier against the returns of ignorance and barbarism.

Bonaparte, with his repeated derisions of Ideologists (squinting at this author) has by this time felt that true wisdom does not lie in mere practice without principle.

from sun-rise to one or two aclock, and often from dinner to dark, I am drudging at the writing table. and all this to answer letters into which neither interest nor inclination on my part enters; and often for persons whose names I have never before heard. yet, writing civilly, it is hard to...