The most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome.

How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could prohibit, in like manner, the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation?

The security intended to the general liberty consists in the frequent election and in the rotation of the members of Congress.

Having outlived so many of my contemporaries, I ought not to forget that I may be thought to have outlived myself.

I wish not to be regarded as an advocate for the particular organizations of the several state governments . . . they carry strong marks of the haste, and still stronger marks of the inexperience, under which they were framed.

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

I am unable to conceive that the state legislatures which must feel so many motives to watch, and which possess so many means of counteracting the federal legislature, would fail either to detect or to defeat a conspiracy of the latter against the liberties of their common constituencies.