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

Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.

I have ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belonging to every sect.

Whatever may be the judgement pronounced on the competency of the architects of the Constitution, or whatever may be the destiny of the edifice prepared by them, I feel it a duty to express my profound and solemn conviction . . . that there never was an assembly of men, charged with a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively or anxiously devoted to the object committed to them.

The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

Democracy was the right of the people to choose their own tyrant.