Quote collection
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"It is a [disputed] question, whether the circulation of paper, rather than of specie [gold and silver coin], is a good or an evil I believe it to be one of those cases where mercantile clamor will bear down reason, until it is corrected by ruin."
"No other depositories of power [but the people themselves] have ever yet been found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed to their charge."
"The people, especially when moderately instructed, are the only safe, because the only honest, depositaries of the public rights, and should therefore be introduced into the administration of them in every function to which they are sufficient; they will err sometimes and accidentally, but never designedly, and with a systematic and persevering purpose of overthrowing the free principles of the government."
"No government can continue good, but under the control of the people."
"Democrats consider the people as the safest depository of power in the last resort; they cherish them, therefore, and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent."
"The mass of the citizens is the safest depositary of their own rights."
"From the nature of things, every society must at all times possess within itself the sovereign powers of legislation."
"It is a happy circumstance in human affairs that evils which are not cured in one way will cure themselves in some other."
"Those characters wherein fear predominates over hope may apprehend too much from...instances of irregularity. They may conclude too hastily that nature has formed man insusceptible of any other government than that of force, a conclusion not founded in truth nor experience."
"It is rare that the public sentiment decides immorally or unwisely, and the individual who differs from it ought to distrust and examine well his own opinion."
"The human character, we believe, requires in general constant and immediate control to prevent its being biased from right by the seductions of self-love."
"Principle will, in... most... cases open the way for us to correct conclusion."
"Men are disposed to live honestly, if the means of doing so are open to them."
"Nature [has] implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses."
"I believe that justice is instinct and innate, that the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing; as a wise Creator must have seen to be necessary in an animal destined to live in society."
"The true fountains of evidence [are] the head and heart of every rational and honest man. It is there nature has written her moral laws, and where every man may read them for himself."
"Never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never saw even an elemental trait of painting or sculpture."
"Defend our liberties and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindred and tongues."
"We act not for ourselves but for the whole human race. The event of our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with self - government."
"The interests of a nation, when well understood, will be found to coincide with their moral duties."