Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks-no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea, if there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.

[In a democracy] a common passion or interest will, in almost every case , be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.

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

[R]efusing or not refusing to execute a law to stamp it with its final character . . . makes the Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended and can never be proper.

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.

There is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust.

Americans need not fear the federal government because they enjoy the advantage of being armed, which you possess over the people of almost every other nation.