I go by the great republican principle, that the people will have the virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom [to the offices of government].

They can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society.

Despotism can only exist in darkness.

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

In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the disease incident to republican government.

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

I am unable to conceive that the state legislatures which must feel so many motives to watch, and which possess so many means of counteracting the federal legislature, would fail either to detect or to defeat a conspiracy of the latter against the liberties of their common constituencies.