How can you trust people who are poor and own no property? ... Inequality of property will exist as long as liberty exists.

The true principle of government is this - make the system compleat in its structure; give a perfect proportion and balance to its parts; and the powers you give it will never affect your security.

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

Hard words are very rarely useful. Real firmness is good for every thing. Strut is good for nothing.

Here sir, the people govern.

If there are such things as political axioms, the propriety of the judicial power of a government being co-extensive with its legislative, may be ranked among the number.

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.