If there be a principle that ought not to be questioned within the United States, it is that every man has a right to abolish an old government and establish a new one. This principle is not only recorded in every public archive, written in every American heart, and sealed with the blood of American martyrs, but is the only lawful tenure by which the United States hold their existence as a nation.

A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking.

The problem to be solved is, not what form of government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.

The general government is proscribed from the interfering, in any manner whatsoever, in matters respecting religion; and it may be thought to do this, in ascertaining who, and who are not, ministers of the gospel.

The house of representatives ... can make no law, which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.

Landholders ought to have a share in the government to support these invaluable interests and check the other many. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.