Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us.

The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.

Our tenet ever was . . . that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action.

. . . in the full tide of successful experiment.

We have no paupers ... The great mass of our [United States] population is of laborers; our rich, who can live without labor, either manual or professional, being few, and of moderate wealth. Most of the laboring class possess property, cultivate their own lands, have families, and from the demand for their labor are enabled to exact from the rich and the competent such prices as enable them to be fed abundantly, clothed above mere decency, to labor moderately and raise their families. ... Can any condition of society be more desirable than this?

A single good government is a blessing to the whole earth.

The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture. --The Fruit Hunters