It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.

The obscurity is much oftener in the passions and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject.

Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation.

Take mankind as they are, and what are they governed by? Their passions.

But though a funded debt is not in the first instance, an absolute increase of Capital, or an augmentation of real wealth; yet by serving as a New power in the operation of industry, it has within certain bounds a tendency to increase the real wealth of a Community, in like manner as money borrowed by a thrifty farmer, to be laid out in the improvement of his farm may, in the end, add to his Stock of real riches.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

The passions of a revolution are apt to hurry even good men into excesses.