The people as a body cannot deliberate. Nevertheless, they will feel an irresistible impulse to act, and their resolutions will be dictated to them by their demagogues... and the violent men, who are the most forward to gratify those passions, will be their favorites. What is called the government of the people is in fact too often the arbitrary power of such men. Here, then, we have the faithful portrait of democracy.

No one ever became, or can become truly eloquent without being a reader of the Bible, and an admirer of the purity and sublimity of its language.

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

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

I have heard it remarked that men are not to be reasoned out of an opinion they have not reasoned themselves into.

Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a schoolbook? Its morals are pure, its examples are captivating and noble....In no Book is there so good English, so pure and so elegant, and by teaching all the same they will speak alike, and the Bible will justly remain the standard of language as well as of faith.

[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.