What a perversion of the normal order of things! ... to make power the primary and central object of the social system, and Liberty but its satellite.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

The truth was that all men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.

The very definition of tyranny is when all powers are gathered under one place.

The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling which they overburden the inferior number is a shilling saved to their own pockets.

Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any Manner contrary to their conscience.