The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people.

Liberty is not to be enjoyed, indeed it cannot exist, without the habits of just subordination; it consists, not so much in removing all restraint from the orderly, as in imposing it on the violent.

Time never fails to bring every exalted reputation to a strict scrutiny.

[the framers of the Constitution] intended our government should be a republic, which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism.

We are not to consider ourselves, while here, as at church or school, to listen to the harangues of speculative piety; we are here to talk of the political interests committed to our charge.

The gentleman puts me in mind of an old hen which persists in setting after her eggs are taken away.

The happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend on piety, religion, and morality.