We are completely saddled and bridled, and... the bank is so firmly mounted on us that we must go where it will guide.

Defend our liberties and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindred and tongues.

A single zealot may commence prosecutor, and better men be his victims.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

To make us one nation as to foreign concerns, and keep us distinct in Domestic ones gives the outline of the proper division of powers between the general [national] and particular [state] governments.

Some men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in Government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead.

Do not write me studied letters but ramble as you please.