Human passions unbridled by morality and religion...would break the stronges cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.

One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress.

The people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unjust, tyrannical, brutal, barbarous, and cruel, as any king or senate possessed of uncontrollable power. The majority has eternally, and without one exception, usurped over the rights of the minority.

If Aristotle, Livy, and Harrington knew what a republic was, the British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire. They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition is just, the British constitution is nothing more or less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government's being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend.

I drink no cider, but feast on Philadelphia beer.

Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart

They shall not be expected to acknowledge us until we have acknowledged ourselves.