The constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruption’s of time and party, its members would become despots.
I love to see honest and honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses, nor pursue measures by which they may profit, and then profit by their measures.
If I could not go to heaven with but a party, I would not go there at all. Therefore, I am not of the party of federalists. But I am much further from that of the anti-federalists.
The people are not always well-informed, but is better that they have misconceptions that make them restless than that they be lethargic-for lethargy in the people means death for republics.
The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism...
My most earnest wish is to see the republican element of popular control pushed to the maximum of its practicable exercise. I shall then believe that our government may be pure and perpetual.
The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It had only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially republican.
It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power is independent of the nation.
Debt and revolution are inseparable as cause and effect.
My principles, and those always received by the republicans, do not admit to removing any person from office merely for a difference of political opinion. Malversations in office, and the exerting of official influence to control the freedom of election are good causes for removal.
The present generation has the same right of self-government which the past one has exercised for itself.
A Man’s management of his own purse speaks volumes about character.
I do verily believe that a single, consolidated government would become the most corrupt government on the earth.
The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticism, fancies, and falsehoods.
Every experience deeply felt in life needs to be passed along. Wheather it be through words and music, chiseled in stone, painted with a brush, or sewn with a needle, it is a way of reaching for immortality.
No government should be without critics. If its intentions are good then it has nothing to fear from criticism.
The opinions of men should not be the object of any government. Our civil rights are no more dependent on our religious beliefs than they are dependent upon our thoughts about geometry or physics!
Ambition is a tricky little animal to tame. It is very skillful at concealing itself from its master.
For an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
The wisdom of our ages and the blood of our heroes has been devoted to the attainment of trial by jury. It should be the creed of our political faith.