A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.

How a regulation so unjust in itself, so foreign to the authority of Congress, and so hurtful to the sale of public land, and smelling so strongly of an antiquated bigotry, could have received the countenance of a committee is truly a matter of astonishment.

Our country, if it does justice to itself, will be the workshop of liberty to the civilized world.

The problem to be solved is, not what form of government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.

The general government is proscribed from the interfering, in any manner whatsoever, in matters respecting religion; and it may be thought to do this, in ascertaining who, and who are not, ministers of the gospel.

[Property] embraces everything to which a man may attach a value and have a right.

[The proposed establishment] will have a . . . tendency to banish our Citizens. . . . To superadd a fresh motive to emigration by revoking the liberty which they now enjoy, would be the same species of folly which has dishonoured and depopulated flourishing kingdoms.