As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

[T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachment of the others.

These examples, though as unfit for the imitation, as they are repugnant to the genius of America, are notwithstanding . . . very instructive proofs of the necessity of some institution that will blend stability with liberty.

A zeal for different opinions concerning religion...[has] divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.

The primary function of government is to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority of the poor.

I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate wherever the Government assumes a freer aspect,& the laws favor a subdivision of property.

It is a misfortune, inseparable from human affairs, that public measures are rarely investigated with that spirit of moderation which is essential to a just estimate of their real tendency to advance or obstruct the public good; and that this spirit is more apt to be diminished than prompted, by those occasions which require an unusual exercise of it.