A certain degree of preparation for war . . . affords also the best security for the continuance of peace.

I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse and in a republican government more than in any other.

A pure Democracy, by which I mean a Society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the Government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of Government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths.

That is not a just government where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations.

An oath-the strongest of religious ties.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

In all great changes of established governments, forms ought to give way to substance