Be it remembered, however, that liberty must at all hazards be supported . . . And the preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks, is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. In one in which the measures of Government receive their impression so immediately from the sense of the Community as in ours it is proportionably essential. If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge.
Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal. Although all men are born free, and all nations might be so, yet too true it is, that slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Rather conclude that the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it, as well as obey it. Though, when a people shall have become incapable of governing themselves and fit for a master, it is of little consequence from what quarter he comes. With money we will get men, said Caesar, and with men we will get money.