“A general Dissolution of Principles & Manners will more surely overthrow the Liberties of America than the whole Force of the Common Enemy. While the People are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their Virtue they will be ready to surrender their Liberties to the first external or internal Invader. How necessary then is it for those who are determin'd to transmit the Blessings of Liberty as a fair Inheritance to Posterity, to associate on publick Principles in Support of publick Virtue.”

Virginia high school appearance, February 28, 2000. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/00_02_28virginia.htm. <br class="br">2000

Article 15
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

Source: Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954), p. 77

On the Completion of the Bunker Hill Monument (1843)
Context: From the time of its discovery, the Spanish government pushed forward its settlements in America, not only with vigor, but with eagerness.... The robbery and destruction of the native race was the achievement of standing armies, in the right of the king, and by his authority, fighting in his name, for the aggrandizement of his power and the extension of his prerogatives, with military ideas under arbitrary maxims, — a portion of that dreadful instrumentality by which a perfect despotism governs a people. As there was no liberty in Spain, how could liberty be transmitted to Spanish colonies?

Letter to Joseph Jones (28 November 1780) https://books.google.com/books?id=-IrnXiH2lbAC&amp;pg=PA11&amp;dq=%22Madison%22+%22coveting+that+liberty+for+which+we+have+paid%22&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0CCYQ6AEwAGoVChMI_ab6o9vWxwIVCmg-Ch1jIgiE#v=onepage&amp;q=%22Madison%22%20%22coveting%20that%20liberty%20for%20which%20we%20have%20paid%22&amp;f=false &lt;!--https://books.google.com/books?id=zkRKqnxjbAoC&amp;pg=PA199&amp;dq=%22liberate+and+make+soldiers+at+once+of%22&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0CC4Q6AEwA2oVChMIyeyr5cPRxwIVDDU-Ch2IxQjN#v=onepage&amp;q=%22liberate%20and%20make%20soldiers%20at%20once%20of%22&amp;f=false--&gt; <br class="br">1780s <br class="br">Context: Would it not be as well to liberate and make soldiers at once of the blacks themselves, as to make them instruments for enlisting white soldiers? It would certainly be more consonant to the principles of liberty which ought never to be lost sight of in a contest for liberty...

Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 28 June 1813. Often misquoted as "The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity"
1810s
Context: The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence, were … the general principles of Christianity, in which all those sects were united, and the general principles of English and American liberty, in which all those young men united, and which had united all parties in America, in majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her independence. Now I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial, mundane system.

Vol. I : The Dedication (March 1772)
Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion (1772–1774)
Context: Respect a parliamentary king, and chearfully pay all parliamentary taxes; but have nothing to do with a parliamentary religion, or a parliamentary God.
Religious rights, and religious liberty, are things of inestimable value. For these have many of our ancestors suffered and died; and shall we, in the sunshine of prosperity, desert that glorious cause, from which no storms of adversity or persecution could make them swerve? Let us consider if as a duty of the first rank with respect to moral obligation, to transmit to our posterity, and provide, as far as we can, for transmitting, unimpaired, to the latest generations, that generous zeal for religion and liberty, which makes the memory of our forefathers so truly illustrious.

As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 301.