Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption

In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights.

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.

It will be remembered, that a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is solemnly enjoined by most of the state constitutions, and particularly by our own, as a necessary safeguard against the danger of degeneracy, to which republics are liable, as well as other governments, though in a less degree than others.

Armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.

[I]n the next place, to show that unless these departments be so far connected and blended as to give to each a constitutional control over the others, the degree of separation which the maxim requires, as essential to a free government, can never in practice be duly maintained.