"The democracy which I have been so long laboring to establish in Virginia has received its death-wound from the present session of Assembly."

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government."

"Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a censor morum over each other."

"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe."