To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. |
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts as are only injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. |
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. |
Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. |
Laws provide against injury from others, but not from ourselves. |
...Enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man, acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter -- with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more.. .a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities. |
At home, fellow citizens, you best know whether we have done well or ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless
establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their
intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every
article of produce and property. |
I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master. |
I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice. |
But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years. |
Fear can only prevail when victims are ignorant of the facts. |
I believe the States can best govern our home concerns, and the General Government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore, to see maintained that wholesome distribution of powers established by the constitution for the limitation of both; and never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold as at market. |
The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government. |
The general [federal] government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cures. |
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks. |
An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens. |
The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution. |
To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and
that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association -- the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it. |
Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction. |
The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as
he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors |
