Democracy, as I understand it, requires me to sacrifice myself for the masses, not to them. Who knows not that if you would save the people, you must often oppose them?

It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.

Of all earthly blessings, I place Liberty in the first rank, and of course, consider the obligation to defend and preserve it, as the most sacred of all our civil and social duties... It is not in the power of any single, or few individuals to preserve liberty. It can only be effected by the people themselves; by their intelligence, virtue, courage, and patriotism.

The object of a Constitution is to restrain the Government, as that of laws is to restrain individuals.

The Union next to our liberties the most dear. May we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States, and distributing equally the benefits and burdens of the Union.

To maintain the ascendancy of the Constitution over the lawmaking majority is the great and essential point on which the success of the [American] system must depend; unless that ascendancy can be preserved, the necessary consequence must be that the laws will supersede the Constitution; and, finally, the will of the Executive, by influence of its patronage, will supersede the laws . . .

The will of a majority is the will of a rabble. Progressive democracy is incompatable with liberty.