"It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the whole people."

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is to their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of educat…"

"The way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to."

"The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny, are to diffuse it generally among the people, and to give to all, in proportion to their interest in it, a proportionate sh…"

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