These are not vague inferences . . . but they are solid conclusions drawn from the natural and necessary progress of human affairs.

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be tomorrow.

Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions.

There may be in every government a few choice spirits, who may act from more worthy motives. One great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are. Our prevailing passions are ambition and interest.

Opinion, whether well or ill-founded, is the governing principle of human affairs

The genius of the people will ill brook the inquisitive and peremptory spirit of excise laws.

Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinion, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.