I flatter myself [we] have in this country extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind.

If it be asked what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer, the genius of the whole system, the nature of just and constitutional laws, and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.

For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects.

We have the self-evident right to regulate our trade according to our own will and our own interest . . . . This right can be denied to no independent nation.

Democracy is the most vile form of government.

The temple through which alone lies the road to that of Liberty.

The most that the Convention could do in such a situation, was to avoid the errors suggested by the past experience of other countries, as well as of our own; and to provide a convenient mode of rectifying their own errors, as future experience may unfold them.