Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people. In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.

Our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep.

I expect we shall be told, that the Militia of the country is its natural bulwark, and would be at all times equal to the national defence...The facts, which from our own experience forbid a reliance of this kind, are too recent to permit us to be the dupes of such a suggestion.

We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.

Good constitutions are formed upon a comparison of the liberty of the individual with the strength of government: If the tone of either be too high, the other will be weakened too much. It is the happiest possible mode of conciliating these objects, to institute one branch peculiarly endowed with sensibility, another with knowledge and firmness. Through the opposition and mutual control of these bodies, the government will reach, in its regular operations, the perfect balance between liberty and power.

When a government betrays the people by amassing too much power and becoming tyrannical, the people have no choice but to exercise their original right of self-defense — to fight the government.