Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparison, no judgment.
[Slavery] is a weed that grows in every soil.
We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.
Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.
Government is the exercise of all the great qualities of the human mind.
Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty; it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic.