The agitation it produces must be submitted to. I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. It is error alone which needs the support of government.
Truth can stand by itself.
The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object. If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them. The principles on which we engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record, were sanctioned by the laws of our being, and we but obeyed them in pursuing undeviatingly the course they called for. It issued finally in that inestimable state of freedom which alone can ensure to man the enjoyment of his equal rights.