JOHN JAY

No power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent.

I can walk the length of the country at night only guided by the light of my effigies burning.

It seldom happens in the negotiation of treaties…but that perfect secrecy and immediate dispatch are sometimes requisite…and there doubtless are many [people] who would rely on the secrecy of the president, but who would not confide in that of the Senate, and still less in that of a large popular assembly.

I purchase slaves and manumit [free] them at proper ages, and when their faithful services shall have afforded a reasonable retribution

Prior to the Revolution, the great majority, or rather the great body of our people had been so long accustomed to the practice and convenience of having slaves, that very few among them ever doubted the propriety and rectitude of it.

... a measure for party purposes which it would not become me to adopt.

A treaty is only another name for a bargain: and that it would be impossible to find a nation who would make any bargain with us, which would be binding on them absolutely, but on us only so long as and so far as we may think proper to be bound by it ... treaties are made not by one of the contracting parties but by both, and consequently that as the consent of both was essential to their formation at first, so must it ever afterwards be to alter or cancel them.

Communicate no other intelligence to Congress at large than what may be necessary to promote the common weal, not to gratify the curiosity of individuals.

Distrust naturally creates distrust.

... men of whom the people have had time to form a judgment, and with respect to whom they will not be liable to be deceived by those brilliant appearances of genius and patriotism, which like transient meteors sometimes mislead as well as dazzle.

Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government; and it is equally undeniable that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights, in order to vest it with requisite powers.

The court has not attained the weight and dignity to enable it to serve the national government.

This war does not strike me as a great evil. The more we are ill-treated abroad the more we shall unite and consolidate at home.

The people who own the country ought to govern it.

For every purpose essential to the defense of these states in the progress of the present war, and necessary to the attainment of the objects of it, the States are as fully, legally and absolutely confederated as it is possible to be.

They who make laws may without doubt amend or repeal them.

Whenever, and from whatever causes, it might happen; and happen it would, that any one of these nations or confederacies should rise on the scale of political importance much above the degree of their neighbors, that moment would those neighbors behold her with envy and fear.

Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people, a people descended from the same ancestors … very similar in their manners and customs.

It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honor of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.

The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy

Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers. And it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers

Real Christians will abstain from violating the rights of others, and therefore will not provoke war.

It certainly is very desirable that a pacific disposition should prevail among all nations.

It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it;

… absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.