To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.

A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.

It is by far the safer course to lay [considerations of the future] altogether aside; and to confine our attention wholly to the nature and extent of the powers as they are delineated in the constitution. Everything beyond this, must be left to the prudence and firmness of the people; who, as they will hold the scales in their own hands, it is to be hoped, will always take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the General and State governments.

The same rule that teaches the propriety of a partition between the various branches of power, teaches us likewise that this partition ought to be so contrived as to render the one independent of the other.

The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.

[H]owever weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.

A LAW, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe. This results from every political association.