Self-preservation is the first principle of our nature.

It is in vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution, and it would be idle to object to a government because it could not perform impossibilities.

[W]e must extend the authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens - the only proper objects of government.

[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 superiority...enjoyed by nations that have...perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a...formidable obstacle.

Every individual of the community at large has an equal right to the protection of government.

And as the vicissitudes of Nations beget a perpetual tendency to the accumulation of debt, there ought to be in every government a perpetual, anxious, and unceasing effort to reduce that, which at any times exists, as fast as shall be practicable consistently with integrity and good faith.