Historical voices

If you think to succeed by such shadowy devices, you are but infants in the political world; you have the A, B, C, of stratagem yet to learn, and are wholly ignorant of the people you have to contend with.

To avoid a defeat, or prevent a desertion of your troops, you have taken up your quarters in holes and corners of inaccessible security; and in order to conceal what every one can perceive, you now endeavor to impose your weakness upon us…

You have already equalled and in many cases excelled, the savages of either Indies; and if you have yet a cruelty in store you must have imported it, unmixed with every human material, from the original warehouse of hell.

To put a plain question; do you consider yourselves men or devils?

THERE is a dignity in the warm passions of a Whig, which is never to be found in the cold malice of a Tory.

The only line to judge truly upon is to draw out and admit all the objections which can fairly be made, and place against them all the contrary qualities, conveniences and advantages, then by striking a balance you come at the true…

There never was a scheme against which objections might not be raised.

And any burden which falls equally on all men, and from which every man is to receive an equal benefit, is consistent with the most perfect ideas of liberty.

That in which every man is interested, is every man's duty to support.

The worst of all policies is that of doing things by halves.

Vigor and determination will do anything and everything.

America is her own mistress and can do what she pleases.

The only way to finish a war with the least possible bloodshed, or perhaps without any, is to collect an army, against the power of which the enemy shall have no chance.

It is by a mere dint of fortitude and perseverance that the Whigs of this State have been able to maintain so good a countenance, and do even what they have done.

Here are men losing their all with cheerfulness, and collecting fire and fortitude from the flames of their own estates.

It is a triumph without a prize, and wholly unworthy the attention of a people determined to conquer.

What we have now to do is as clear as light, and the way to do it is as straight as a line.

The ministers of Britain may rage as they please, but our part is to conquer their armies.

There is something in a war carried on by invasion which makes it differ in circumstances from any other mode of war, because he who conducts it cannot tell whether the ground he gains be for him, or against him, when he first obtains it.

The thing is not within the compass of human practicability, for America is too extensive either to be fully conquered or passively defended.

Their plans of business are calculated by the hour and for the hour, and are uniform in nothing but the corruption which gives them birth.

They have no idea of a people submitting even to temporary inconvenience from an attachment to rights and privileges.

The spirit of corruption is so inseparably interwoven with British politics, that their ministry suppose all mankind are governed by the same motives.

We have equalled the bravest in times of danger, and excelled the wisest in construction of civil governments.