Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.

It would not be for the public good to have [a majority in Congress of one party] greater [than] two to one.

During the late war I had an infallible rule for deciding what Great Britain would do on every occasion. It was, to consider what they ought to do, and to take the reverse of that as what they would assuredly do, and I can say with truth that I was never deceived.

My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.

If virtuous, the government need not fear the fair operation of attack and defense. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting the truth, either in religion, law, or politics.

In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant: here it is to make the most of our labour, land being abundant.

The failure of one thing is repaired by the success of another.