The genius of the people will ill brook the inquisitive and peremptory spirit of excise laws.

Though a wide ocean separates the United States from Europe, yet there are various considerations that warn us against an excess of confidence or security.

Tyranny has perhaps oftener grown out of the assumptions of power, called for, on pressing exigencies, by a defective constitution, than out of the full exercise of the largest constitutional authorities.

They are not rules prescribed by the sovereign to the subject, but agreements between sovereign and sovereign.

To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.

If it were to be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws - the first growing out of the last . . . . A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.

With regard to the learned professions, little need be observed; they truly form no distinct interest in society . . . [discussing the landed, merchant, and learned classes in legislative assembly]. Will not the man of the learned profession, who will feel a neutrality to the rivalships between the different branches of industry, be likely to prove an impartial arbiter between them, ready to promote either, so far as it shall appear to him conducive to the general interests of society?