[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.

A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the bottom; a republic is a raft which will never sink, but then your feet are always in the water.

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.

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

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

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

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.