[L]iberty cannot be preserved, if the manners of the people are corrupted . . .

[A]ll popular and well-mixed governments [republics] . . . are ever established by wise and good men, and can never be upheld otherwise than by virtue: The worst men always conspiring against them, they must fall, if the best have not power to preserve them. . . . [and] unless they be preserved in a great measure free from vices . . . .

For violence or fraud can create no right.

Laws and constitutions ought to be weighed... to constitute that which is most conducing to the establishment of justice and liberty.

[I]f vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established.

If the public safety be provided, liberty and propriety secured, justice administered, virtue encouraged, vice suppressed, and the true interest of the nation advanced, the ends of government are accomplished . . .

God leaves to Man the choice of Forms in Government; and those who constitute one Form, may abrogate it.