Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known and less fixed?

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.

Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?

It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy . . . great improvement . . . were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients.

The reasonableness of the agency of the national courts in cases in which the state tribunals cannot be supposed to be impartial, speaks for itself. No man ought certainly to be a judge in his own cause, or in any cause in respect to which he has the least interest or bias.

If it were to be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws - the first growing out of the last . . . . A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.

A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.