The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union.

Honesty and interest are as intimately connected in the public as in the private code of morality.

It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.

The government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers.

I considered 4 of these bills [of the revised code of Virginia] as forming a system by which every fibre would be eradicated of antient or future aristocracy; and a foundation laid for a government truly republican.

If I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off.