What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

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.

The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted [in the federal convention], and surmounted with a unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.

Despotism can only exist in darkness.

Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society.

I go by the great republican principle, that the people will have the virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom [to the offices of government].