The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.

The Spirit of Enterprise, which characterizes the commercial part of America, has left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved. It is not at all probable that this unbridled spirit would pay much respect to those regulations of trade by which particular States might endeavor to secure exclusive benefits to their own citizens.

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased.

The honor of a nation is its life. Deliberately to abandon it is to commit an act of political suicide.

The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.

[T]hough individual oppression may now and then proceed fro the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter . . .

In the usual progress of things, the necessities of a nation in every stage of its existence will be found at least equal to its resources.