A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.

A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.

The scheme of separate confederacies, which will always multiply the chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait to all such influential characters in the State administrations as are capable of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the public weal.

Wherever indeed a right of property is infringed for the general good, if the nature of the case admits of compensation, it ought to be made; but if compensation be impracticable, that impracticability ought to be an obstacle to a clearly essential reform.

You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.

To look for a continuation in harmony between a number of independent unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.

Its objects are CONTRACTS with foreign nations which have the force of law, but derive it from the obligations of good faith.