History in general only informs us what bad government is.

Smith’s wealth of nations is the best book to be read, unless Say’s Political economy can be had which treats the same subjects on the same principles, but in a shorter compass & more lucid manner.

I congratulate you, fellow citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally, to withdraw the citizens of the United states from all further participation in those violations of human rights, which have been so long continued on the unoffending...

The expedition of Messrs Lewis & Clarke, for exploring the river Missouri, and the best communication from that to the Pacific ocean, has had all the success which could have been expected. they have traced the Missouri nearly to...

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance

Jesus embraced, with charity & philanthropy, our neighbors, our countrymen, & the whole family of mankind.

mr Madison’s friendship & mine to you being so well known the public will have eagle eyes to watch if we grant you any indulgencies out of the general rule; and on the other hand, the example set in your case will be more cogent on future ones, and produce greater approbation to our conduct....

some men are born for the public. nature by fitting them for the service of the human race on a broad scale, has stamped them with the evidences of her destination & their duty

still one thing more, fellow citizens. a wise & frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, & shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. this is the...

Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high minded to endure the degradations of the others, possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation, entertaining a due sense...