Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

No power over the freedom of religion [is] delegated to the United States by the Constitution.

The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican? It is evident that no other form would be reconcileable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the revolution; or with that honourable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.

I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce, and hold it as a truth, that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic.

Our country, if it does justice to itself, will be the workshop of liberty to the civilized world.

The Convention thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.