A confederacy of republics must be the establishment in America, or we must cease altogether to retain the republican form of government.
A constitution is a compact of a people with their rulers; if the rulers break the compact, the people have a right and ought to remove them and do themselves justice.
A great empire contains the amities and animosities of a world within itself.
All generalizations are false, including this one.
Although it has been said that every generation grows wiser and wiser, yet we have no reason to think they grow better and better.
America is now free. She now enjoys a greater portion of political liberty than any other country under heaven. How long she may continue so depends entirely upon her own caution and wisdom.
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it’s stored than to anything on which it’s poured.
Even good men in office, in time, imperceptibly lose sight of the people, and gradually fall into measures prejudicial to them. It is only a rotation among the members of the federal legislature I shall contend for.
For to answer objections made to a power given to a government, by saying it will never be exercised, is really admitting that the power ought not to be exercised, and therefore ought not to be granted.
I had rather be a free citizen of the small republic of Massachusetts, than an oppressed subject of the great American empire.
I used to be indecisive but now I’m not so sure.
I wish for nothing more than a good government and a constitution under which our liberties will be perfectly safe.
If tyranny is at all feared, the tyranny of the many is to be guarded against more than that of a single person.
If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the precipitate.
In laying down a political system it is safer to rely on principles than upon precedents, because the former are fixed and immutable, while the latter vary with men, places, times and circumstances.
In short, [Supreme Court justices] are independent of the people, of the legislature, and of every power under heaven. Men placed in this situation will generally soon feel themselves independent of heaven itself.
It has always been the favorite maxim of princes, to divide the people, in order to govern them. It is now time that the people should avail themselves of the same maxim, and divide powers among their rulers, in order to prevent their abusing it.
It has long been thought to be a well founded position, that the purse and sword ought not to be placed in the same hands in a free government.
It is very easy to change a free government into an arbitrary one, but that it is very difficult to convert tyranny into freedom.
Let us therefore continue united in the cause of rational liberty. Let unity and liberty be our mark as well as our motto. For only such an union can secure our freedom; and division will inevitably destroy it.
Liberty therefore can only subsist, where the powers of government are properly divided, and where the different jurisdictions are inviolably kept distinct and separate.
Matters of fact are stubborn things....
Men elected for several years, several hundred miles distant from their states, possessed of very extensive powers, and the means of paying themselves, will not, probably, be oppressed with a sense of dependence and responsibility.
No explanation is needed for a believer; no explanation suffices for an unbeliever.
No free government under heaven, with a well disciplined militia, was ever yet subdued by mercenary troops.
No one man, therefore, or any class of men, have a right, by the law of nature, or of God, to assume or exercise authority over their fellows.
Science consists largely in telling people things which they already know, in a language which they cannot understand.
Some of these rights are said to be unalienable, such as the rights of conscience. Yet even these have been often invaded, where they have not been carefully secured, by express and solemn bills and declarations in their favor.
The common good, therefore, is the end of civil government, and common consent, the foundation on which it is established.
The few must be watched, checked, and often resisted. Tyranny has ever shown a predilection to be in close amity with them, or the one man.
The opinions of the supreme court, whatever they may be, will have the force of law; because there is no power provided in the constitution that can correct their errors, or control their adjudications.
There is no instance of any government being reduced to a confirmed tyranny without military oppression.
Those who have governed, have been found in all ages ever active to enlarge their powers and abridge the public liberty.
We may amuse ourselves with names; but the fact is, men will be governed by the motives and temptations that surround their situation. Political evils to be guarded against are in the human character, and not in the name of patrician or plebeian.
Whenever men are unanimous on great public questions, whenever there is but one party, freedom ceases and despotism commences.
Where the people are free there can be no great contrast or distinction among honest citizens in or out of office.
[The] confederated national government...should be one which would have a control over national and external matters only, and not interfere with the internal regulations and police of the different states in the union.