Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed.

Were it not that it might require too long a discussion, it would not be difficult to demonstrate that a large and well-organized republic can scarcely lose its liberty from any other cause than that of anarchy, to which a contempt of the laws is the high-road.

I would die to preserve the law upon a solid foundation; but take away liberty, and the foundation is destroyed.

Nothing can be more evident, than that an exclusive power of regulating elections for the National Government, in the hands of the State Legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy . . . . It is to little purpose to say that a neglect or omission of this kind [not letting the feds have elections], would be unlikely to take place. The constitutional possibility of the thing, without an equivalent for the risk, is an unanswerable objection.

It is in vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution, and it would be idle to object to a government because it could not perform impossibilities.

Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society.

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