The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce. ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.

One nation is to another what one individual is to another; with this melancholy distinction perhaps, that the former with fewer of the benevolent emotions than the latter, are under fewer restraints also from taking undue advantage of the indiscretions of each other.

Besides the obscurity arising from the complexity of objects, and the imperfection of the human faculties, the medium through which the conceptions of men are conveyed to each other adds a fresh embarrassment.

[Christianity] existed and flourishes, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them.

All power in human hands is liable to be abused.

Can it be of less consequence that the meaning of a Constitution should be fixed and known, than a meaning of a law should be so?

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.