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.

Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.

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

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

A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.

Democracy, in its best state, is but the politics of Bedlam; while kept chained, its thoughts are frantic, but when it breaks loose, it kills the keeper, fires the building, and perishes.