No man is entirely free from weakness and imperfection in this life. Men of the most exalted genius and active minds are generally most perfect slaves to the love of fame. They sometimes descend to as mean tricks and artifices in pursuit of honor or reputation as the miser descends to in pursuit of gold.
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.
I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.