There Is Nothing I Dread So Much

I Am Well Pleased With What I Hear Of You: The Principal Satisfaction I Can Expect In Life, In Future Will Be In Your Good Behavior And That Of My Other Children. My Hopes From All Of You Are Very Agreable. God Grant, I May Not Be Disappointed.

During The Whole Time I Sat With Him In Congress, I Never Heard Him Utter Three Sentences Together.

There Never Was Yet A People Who Must Not Have Somebody Or Something To Represent The Dignity Of The State.

To Suppose Arms In The Hands Of Citizens, To Be Used At Individual Discretion, Except In Private Self-defense, Or By Partial Orders Of Towns, Counties Or Districts Of A State, Is To Demolish Every Constitution, And Lay The Laws Prostrate, So That Liberty Can Be Enjoyed By No Man; It Is A Dissolution Of The Government. The Fundamental Law Of The Militia Is, That It Be Created, Directed And Commanded By The Laws, And Ever For The Support Of The Laws.

The Fundamental Article Of My Political Creed Is That Despotism, Or Limited Sovereignty, Or Absolute Power Is The Same [whether] In A Majority Of A Popular Assembly; An Aristocratic Council; Or Oligarchical Junto And A Single Emperor - Equally Arbitrary, Cruel, Bloody And In Every Respect Diabolical.