I have not been in the habit of mysterious reserve on any subject, nor of buttoning up my opinions within my own doublet. on the contrary, while in public service especially, I have thought the public entitled to frankness, and intimately to know whom they employed.

each generation is as independant of the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before. it has then, like them, a right to chuse for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of it’s own happiness.

Some men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, & deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. they ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well: I belonged to it,...

I am not among those who fear the people. they and not the rich, are our dependance for continued freedom. and to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt ... if we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our...

I do not think their laws amendment so difficult as is pretended. only lay down true principles, and adhere to them inflexibly. do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth agains the ascendancy of the people.