Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.

Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed.

There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.

Necessity, especially in politics, often occasions false hopes, false reasonings, and a system of measures, correspondingly erroneous.

[I]n framing a Government for a nation we ought, in those provisions which are designed to be permanent, to calculate not on temporary, but on permanent causes of expence.

The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government.

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.