John Dickinson

"Our cause is just, Our union is perfect."

"Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall."

"It is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people that no taxes be imposed on them but with their own consent, given personally or by their representatives."

"Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness, as you confess those invaded by the Stamp Act to be. We claim them from a higher source—from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives."

"Let us take care of our rights, and we therein take care of our property. 'Slavery is ever preceded by sleep.'"

"Honor, justice and humanity call upon us to hold and to transmit to our posterity, that liberty, which we received from our ancestors. It is not our duty to leave wealth to our children; but it is our duty to leave liberty to them. No infamy, iniquity, or cruelty can exceed our own if we, born and educated in a country of freedom, entitled to its blessings and knowing their value, pusillanimously deserting the post assigned us by Divine Providence, surrender succeeding generations to a condition of wretchedness from which no human efforts, in all probability, will be sufficient to extricate them; the experience of all states mournfully demonstrating to us that when arbitrary power has been established over them, even the wisest and bravest nations that ever flourished have, in a few years, degenerated into abject and wretched vassals."

"If it was possible for men who exercise their reason, to believe that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to that body. But a reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that Government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end."

"We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers or resistance by force. The latter is our choice. We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery. Honour, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us."

"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves."

"These excellent Letters,‭ ‬which contain much seasonable instruction,‭ ‬are said to be written by John Dickinson,‭ ‬Esq.‭ ‬the same eminent Author to whom thanks‭ ‬were most deservedly given,‭ ‬by the Committee for the‭ ‬Province of Pennsylvania,‭ ‬on the‭ ‬21ft of July last, “for the great assistance they had derived from the‭ ‬application of his eminent abilities to the service of‭ ‬his country,‭ ‬in”‭ (‬another‭) “‬performance,‭" s‬ince‭ ‬published,‭ ‬intitled,‭ “‬A new Essay‭" (‬by the Pennsylvanian Farmer‭) “‬on the constitutional Power of‭ ‬Great-Britain over the Colonies in America,‭" &c. ‬And the said Committee,‭ ‬with great justice and propriety,‭ ‬recommended that performance,‭ “‬as highly deserving the perusal and serious consideration of‭ ‬every friend of liberty,‭" &c‬."