Those who have a tolerable knowledge of human nature will not stand in need of such lights.

Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.

Remember civil and religious liberty always go together: if the foundation of the one be sapped, the other will fall of course.

The true principle of government is this - make the system compleat in its structure; give a perfect proportion and balance to its parts; and the powers you give it will never affect your security.

The idea of governing at all times by the simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government) has no place but in the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction.

If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.

It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.