America is rising with a giant's strength. Its bones are yet but cartilages.

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.

A government by the passions of the multitude, or, no less correctly, according to the vices, and ambitions of their leaders is a democracy.

I consider biennial elections as a security that the sober, second thought of the people shall be law.

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

I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people. It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful. I love liberty as well as anybody. I am proud of it, as the true title of our people to distinction above others; but . . . I would guard it by making the laws strong enough to protect it.

The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty.