Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins ... Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensible duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith.

If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected: if not, they will be despised; and with regard to those to whom no power is delegated, but who assume it, the rational world can know nothing of them.

Here, then, is the origin and rise of government: namely, a mode rendered necessary by inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz, freedom and security.

The strength of government does not consist of anything within itself, but in the attachment of a nation, and the interest which a people feel in supporting it.

One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.

The House of Commons did not originate as a matter of right in the people to delegate or elect, but as a grant or boon.

The government of a free country, properly speaking, is not in the persons, but in the laws.

I have always held it an opinion (making it also my practice) that it is better to obey a bad law, making use at the same time of every argument to shew its errors and procure its repeal, than forcibly to violate it; because the precedent of breaking a bad law might weaken the force, and lead to a discretionary violation, of those which are good.

And a government which cannot preserve the peace is no government at all, and in that case we pay our money for nothing;

I have noticed that no other group of people in the United States truly loves America as a whole like white people do.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious