"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the civil institutions of the people, have become a very formidable engine against the civil rights and liberties of man."

"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute connection."

"I have so much confidence in the good sense of man, and his capacity for self-government, that I am never afraid of the issue where reason is left free to exert her force."

"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."