the eyes of our citizens are not yet sufficiently open to the true cause of our distresses. they ascribe them to every thing but their true cause, the banking system; a system, which, if it could do good in any form, is yet so certain of leading to abuse, as to be utterly incompatible with the...

books are indeed with me a necessary of life; and since I ceded my library to Congress I have been annually importing from Paris.

you left us in a state of political division, and in the same state you find us, and in that state I hope we shall ever be found. men are not made to have the same opinions, any more than the same features or bodily forms. we differ as others do; and on government as on other subjects.

Congress has just risen, having done nothing remarkable, except passing a tariff bill, by squeezing majorities, very revolting to a great portion of the people of the states, among whom, it is believed, it would not have recieved a vote but of the manufactories manufactorers themselves. it is...

my greatest grief would be for the fatal effect of such an event on the hopes and happiness of the world. we exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government, so modelled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government. were we to break to pieces,...

a government of reason is better than one of force.

the boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

on the subject of religion, a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his maker, in which no other, & far less the public, had a right to intermeddle.