No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States and compounding the American people into one common mass.

An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.

I fear we may live to see another revolution.

That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis, on which the whole American fabric has been erected.... The principles, therefore, so established, are deemed fundamental. And as the authority, from which they proceed, is supreme ... they are designed to be permanent.... The powers of the legislature are defined, and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written.

In a free government almost all other rights would become worthless if the government possessed power over the private fortune of every citizen.

The most lively fancy aided by the strongest description cannot equal the reality of the opera.

The acme of judicial distinction means the ability to look a lawyer straight in the eyes for two hours and not hear a damned word he says.