For most Americans the Constitution had become a hazy document, cited like the Bible on ceremonial occasions but forgotten in the daily transactions of life.

Total separation of church and state was considered the best safeguard for the health of each. As [Andrew] Jackson explained, in refusing to name a fast day, he feared to 'disturb the security which religion now enjoys in this country, in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.'

History, in the end, becomes a form of irony.

Troubles impending always seem worse than troubles surmounted, but this does not prove that they really are.

People who claw their way to the top are not likely to find very much wrong with the system that enabled them to rise.

Anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the businessman.

The genius of impeachment lay in the fact that it could punish the man without punishing the office.