[T]o preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that [the Constitution] has established . . . are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

That paper money has some advantages is admitted. But that its abuses also are inevitable and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot be denied.

The same political parties which now agitiate the US have existed through all time. And in fact the terms of whig and tory belong to natural as well as to civil history. They denote the temper and constitution and mind of different individuals.

I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to the people of the country under regulations as would secure their safe return in due time.

Although our prospect is peace, our policy and purpose are to provide for defense by all those means to which our resources are competent.

There is... an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency.