[I]n framing a Government for a nation we ought, in those provisions which are designed to be permanent, to calculate not on temporary, but on permanent causes of expence.

What plan for the regulation of the militia may be pursued by the national government is impossible to be foreseen...The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious if it were capable of being carried into execution... Little more can reasonably be aimed at with the respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped ; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.

The superiority...enjoyed by nations that have...perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a...formidable obstacle.

Opinion, whether well or ill-founded, is the governing principle of human affairs

Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.

The vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty. . . . a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.

Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?