Nothing has yet been offered to invalidate the doctrine that the meaning of the Constitution may as well be ascertained by the Legislative as by the Judicial authority.

An efficient militia is authorized and contemplated by the Constitution and required by the spirit and safety of free government.

The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.

The primary function of government is to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority of the poor.

The preservation of a free government requires not merely that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority and are Tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves.

The definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government.

But the mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain.