Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labour of slaves.

Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation.... Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.

The passions, therefore, not the reason, of the public would sit in judgment. But it is the reason, alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government.

The rights of man as the foundation of just Government had been long understood but the superstructures projected had been sadly defective

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.

No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment.