A government held together by the bands of reason only, requires much compromise of opinion.

There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.

We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education.

There are two amendments only which I am anxious for: 1. A bill of rights, which it is so much the interest of all to have that I conceive it must be yielded...2. The restoring of the principle of necessary rotation, particularly to the Senate and Presidency, but most of all to the last.

The human character, we believe, requires in general constant and immediate control to prevent its being biased from right by the seductions of self-love.

We are here lounging our time away, doing nothing, and having nothing to do. It gives me great regret to be passing my time so uselessly when it could have been so importantly employed at home.

I was dupedby the Secretary of the treasury [Alexander Hamilton], and made a fool for forwarding his schemes, not then sufficiently understood by me; and of all the errors of my political life, this has occasioned the deepest regret.