The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.

It is a melancholy reflection that liberty should be equally exposed to danger whether the government have too much power or too little power and that the line which divides these extremes should be so inaccurately defined by experience.

The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.

From the the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results.

There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by...corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.

The inference to which we are brought is that the causes of faction cannot be removed and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.

There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermingle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation.