And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?
He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him.
I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.'
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
It is not by the consolidation or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected.
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.