There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises.

The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned.

Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.

Every word of [the Constitution] decides a question between power and liberty.

Where a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure.

As the war was just in its origin and necessary and noble in its objects, we can reflect with a proud satisfaction that in carrying it on no principle of justice or honor, no usage of civilized nations, no precept of courtesy or humanity, have been infringed.

Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience, which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection for which the public faith is pledged by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.