Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize, every expanded prospect. - James Madison

It must not be so; because we intend this Constitution to be the great charter of Human Liberty to the unborn millions who shall enjoy its protection, and who should never see that such an institution as slavery was ever known in our midst.

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

If in any instances, wrong has been done by our forefathers to people of one colour, by dispossessing them of their soil, what better atonement is now in our power than that of making what is rightfully acquired a source of justice & of blessings to a people of another colour?