Go, with the commendation of the Saviour to his apostles when he first sent them forth to redeem the world: 'Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.' In the ardor of your zeal for moral reform forget not the rights of personal freedom.
Quincy encourages moral reformers to balance their zeal with respect for personal freedoms.
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The argument for the annexation, or reännexation, of Texas is as gross an imposture as ever was palmed upon the credulity of an honest people.
Adams replied: "I have no hesitation to say I hold that act unconstitutional and void.
They have transmitted that freedom to you; and upon you now devolves the duty of transmitting it unimpaired to your posterity.
Though conscious, being then in his seventy-eighth year, that he stood on the threshold of human life, he sought no relaxation from duty, no exemption from its performance.
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