I hope this will find you...enjoying the commencement of a new year with every prospect that can make it a happy one.

[I]n the next place, to show that unless these departments be so far connected and blended as to give to each a constitutional control over the others, the degree of separation which the maxim requires, as essential to a free government, can never in practice be duly maintained.

Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured. But what particular degree of frequency may be absolutely necessary for the purpose, does not appear to be susceptible of any precise calculation; and must depend on a variety of circumstances with which it may be connected. Let us consult experience, the guide that ought always to be followed, whenever it can be found.

The American people owe it to themselves, and to the cause of free Government, to prove by their establishments for the advancement and diffusion of knowledge, that their political Institutionsare as favorable to the intellectual and moral improvement of Man as they are conformable to his individual and social rights.

I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse and in a republican government more than in any other.

[Exchange] the galling burden of bachelorship for the easy yoke of matrimony.

The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature.