A right to property is founded in our natural wants, in the means with which we are endowed to satisfy these wants, and the right to what we acquire by those means without violating the similar rights of other sensible beings.

Amplification is the vice of modern oratory. It is an insult to an assembly of reasonable men, disgusting and revolting instead ofpersuading. Speeches measured by the hour, die by the hour.

I do verily believe that a single, consolidated government would become the most corrupt government on the earth.

The federal government is our servant, not our master.

[O]ur rules can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God.

Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.

Courts love the people always, as wolves do the sheep.