I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.

One can also be undignified and flattering toward a virtue.

It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.

There still shines the most important nuance by virtue of which the noble felt themselves to be men of a higher rank. They designate themselves simply by their superiority in power or by the most clearly visible signs of this superiority, for example, as the rich, the possessors.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

The satisfaction arising from the indulgent opinion entertained by the American People of my conduct, will, I trust, be some security for preventing me from doing any thing, which might justly incur the forfeiture of that opinion. And the consideration that human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected, will always continue to prompt me to promote the progress of the former, by inculcating the practice of the latter.