As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.
Every diminution of the public burdens arising from taxation gives to individual enterprise increased power and furnishes to all the members of our happy confederacy new motives for patriotic affection and support.
I cannot consent that my mortal body shall be laid in a repository prepared for an Emperor or a King; my republican feelings and principles forbid it the simplicity of our system of government forbids it.
Mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges... which are employed altogether for their benefit.
Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result.
The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none.
The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.
The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer... form the great body of the people of the United States; they are the bone and sinew of the country men who love liberty and desire nothing but equal rights and equal laws.
There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing.
We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.
