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

The definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government.

But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm . . . But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.

A distinction of property results from that very protection which a free Government gives to unequal faculties of acquiring it.

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.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.