Josiah Quincy: “Democracy is self-government of the community by the conjoint will of the majority of numbers.”

He knew how little a majority of the men of his own time were disposed or qualified to estimate his character with justice.

They have transmitted that freedom to you; and upon you now devolves the duty of transmitting it unimpaired to your posterity.

His spirit of liberty was fostered and inspired by the writings of Milton, Sydney, and Locke, of which the American Declaration of Independence was an emanation, and the constitution of the United States, with the exception of the clauses…

The charge, therefore, that our government did really give up that important territory, when it was at its option to retain it, is purely and unqualifiedly untrue; and I now charge that it was known by Mr.