All the past is here, present to be tried; let it approve itself if it can.
Nature is an admirable schoolmistress.
The authority of government . . . can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it.
The Ethiopian cannot change his skin nor the leopard his spots.
What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to wonder?
This American government - what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will.