If the General Government should be left dependent on the State Legislatures, it would be happy for us if we had never met in this room.

The rights essential to happiness. . . . We claim them from a higher source - from the King of kings and Lord of all the earth.

Honor, justice, and humanity, call upon us to hold, and to transmit to our posterity, that liberty which we received from our ancestors. It is not our duty to leave wealth to our children, but it is our duty to leave liberty to them.

Let our government be like that of the solar system. Let the general government be like the sun and the states the planets, repelled yet attracted, and the whole moving regularly and harmoniously in several orbits.

Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us.

Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.

Rendering thanks to my Creator for my existence and station among His works, for my birth in a country enlightened by the Gospel and enjoying freedom, and for all His other kindnesses, to Him I resign myself, humbly confiding in His goodness and in His mercy through Jesus Christ for the events of eternity.

Let these truths be indelibly impressed on our minds — that we cannot be happy, without being FREE — that we cannot be free, without being secure in our property— that we cannot be secure in our property, if, without our consent, others may, as by right, take it away — that taxes imposed on us by parliament, do thus take it away.