“We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty.”

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: Slavery is wrong. If Slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and Constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality — its universality; if it is wrong they cannot justly insist upon its extension — its enlargement. All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought Slavery right; all we ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?
Wrong as we think Slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States?
If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored — contrivances such as groping for middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man — such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care — such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance — such as invocations of Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington did.

Letter to Elector Friedrich of the Palatinate, November 1, 1559. In The Peter Martyr Library: Dialogue on the Two Natures in Christ, Pietro Martire Vermigli, John Patrick Donnelly, trans. & ed, Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1995, ISBN 0940474336 ISBN 978-0940474338, vol. 2, p. 167. http://books.google.com/books?id=dkTspOwegEsC&pg=PA167&dq=%22true,+and+clear+form+of+doctrine,+++without+any+ambiguity%22&hl=en&ei=2XUqTJCjGY2inQf_q93VDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22true%2C%20and%20clear%20form%20of%20doctrine%2C%20%20%20without%20any%20ambiguity%22&f=false. Primary source: Corpus Reformatorum, 1842, Volume 9, p. 961. http://books.google.com/books?id=mMk8AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1559-IA6&dq=%22una+consentiens+forma+doctrinae+vera+et+perspicua%22&hl=en&ei=Wf4jTMOpIML78AaryfzcBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22una%20consentiens%20forma%20doctrinae%20vera%20et%20perspicua%22&f=false
Alternate translation: Moreover, I desire that with the plan of the wise rulers and with their authority, pious and learned men at some time be called together both from our own churches and the churches of other nations in order that there might be a deliberation about all these controversies, and that one consenting form of doctrine, true and clear and without any ambiguity, might be handed down to posterity.
In Melanchthon in English: New Translations into English with a Registry of Previous Translations: A Memorial to William Hammer (1909-1976), Lowell C. Green, Charles D. Froehlich, Center for Reformation Research, 1982, p. 24. http://books.google.com/books?id=kkoXAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Elector+Friedrich+of+the+Palatinate%22+english&dq=%22Elector+Friedrich+of+the+Palatinate%22+english&hl=en&ei=LIUqTNelDYPlnQeG85GYAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)

2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)
Context: Of course, neither the United States nor Europe are perfect in adherence to our ideals, nor do we claim to be the sole arbiter of what is right or wrong in the world. We are human, after all, and we face difficult choices about how to exercise our power. But part of what makes us different is that we welcome criticism, just as we welcome the responsibilities that come with global leadership.

Source: Nancy I. Lieber, ‎Institute for Democratic Socialism (U.S.) (1982) Eurosocialism and America: political economy for the 1980s. p. 222.

1960s, Special message to Congress on the right to vote (1965)
Context: In our system, the first right and most vital of all our fights is the right to vote. Jefferson described the elective franchise as "the ark of our safety." It is from the exercise of this right that the guarantee of all our other rights flows. Unless the right to vote be secure and undenied, all other rights are insecure and subject to denial for all our citizens. The challenge to this right is a challenge to America itself. We must meet this challenge as decisively as we would meet a challenge mounted against our land from enemies abroad.

2016, Convention (August 2016)