If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interests require.

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.

The dead should not rule the living

The moral sense is the first excellence of well-organized man.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

Our ancestors ... possessed a right, which nature has given to all men, of departing from the country in which chance, not choice has placed them.

Those are governed best who are governed least.