[I]t is more convenient to prevent the passage of a law, than to declare it void after it has passed.

What a perversion of the normal order of things! ... to make power the primary and central object of the social system, and Liberty but its satellite.

Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.

The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.

The people of the U.S. owe their Independence & their liberty, to the wisdom of descrying in the minute tax of 3 pence on tea, the magnitude of the evil comprized in the precedent. Let them exert the same wisdom, in watching agst every evil lurking under plausible disguises, and growing up from small beginnings.

I wish not to be regarded as an advocate for the particular organizations of the several state governments . . . they carry strong marks of the haste, and still stronger marks of the inexperience, under which they were framed.