History by apprising them [the people] of the past will enable them to judge of the future. . . . It will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men: it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.

Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.

Government is being founded on opinion, the opinion of the public, even when it is wrong, ought to be respected to a certain degree.

There is no act, however virtuous, for which ingenuity may not find some bad motive.

Hemp is one of the greatest, most important substances of our nation

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.