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 people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge right or make good decision.

Those who do not industrialize become hewers of wood and hawkers of water

These are not vague inferences . . . but they are solid conclusions drawn from the natural and necessary progress of human affairs.

The standard of good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy is certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government.

It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.

The powers contained in a constitution...ought to be construed liberally in advancement of the public good.