Among A People Generally Corrupt Liberty Cannot

It Is An Advantage To All Narrow Wisdom And Narrow Morals That Their Maxims Have A Plausible Air; And, On A Cursory View, Appear Equal To First Principles. They Are Light And Portable. They Are As Current As Copper Coin; And About As Valuable.

As To Great And Commanding Talents, They Are The Gift Of Providence In Some Way Unknown To Us, They Rise Where They Are Least Expected; They Fail When Everything Seems Disposed To Produce Them, Or At Least To Call Them Forth.

I Decline The Election. It Has Ever Been My Rule Through Life, To Observe A Proportion Between My Efforts And My Objects. I Have Never Been Remarkable For A Bold, Active, And Sanguine Pursuit Of Advantages That Are Personal To Myself.

Reflect How You Are To Govern A People Who Think They Ought To Be Free, And Think They Are Not. Your Scheme Yields No Revenue; It Yields Nothing But Discontent, Disorder, Disobedience; And Such Is The State Of America, That After Wading Through Up To Your Eyes In Blood, You Could Only End Up Where You Begun; That Is, To Tax Where No Revenue Is To Be Found... All Is Confusion Beyond It.

That Great Chain Of Causes, Which, Linking One To Another, Even To The Throne Of God Himself, Can Never Be Unraveled By Any Industry Of Ours.