If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.

If the Constitution is adopted (and it was) the Union will be in fact and in theory an association of States or a Confederacy.

Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.

Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinion, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.

To attempt to enumerate the complicated variety of mischiefs in the whole system of the social economy, which proceed from a neglect of the maxims that uphold public credit, and justify the solicitude manifested by the House on this point, would be an improper intrusion on their time and patience.

The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.

What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped if their government had contained so provident a safeguard against tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens the hemlock on one day and statutes the next.