The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.
The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.
It’s not tyranny we desire; it’s a just, limited, federal government.
The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased.
Give all the power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all the power to the few, they will oppress the many.
I would die to preserve the law upon a solid foundation; but take away liberty, and the foundation is destroyed.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
No character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, however false.
A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.
Nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties.
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.
Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.
For my part, I sincerely esteem the Constitution, a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests.
There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.
Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.
And it is long since I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.
That there may happen cases in which the national government may be necessitated to resort to force, cannot be denied.
It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.
Learn to think continentally.