If man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else?

The Constitution of the United States was created by the people of the United States composing the respective states, who alone had the right.

Because we hold it for 'a fundamental and undeniable truth', that religion or 'the duty which we owe to our Creator' and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.

In all great changes of established governments, forms ought to give way to substance

The free system of government we have established is so congenial with reason, with common sense, and with a universal feeling, that it must produce approbation and a desire of imitation, as avenues may be found for truth to the knowledge of nations.

But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm . . . But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.