The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
The essence of Government is power and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.
A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.
War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.
A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.
A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.
Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.
The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.
The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
The happy Union of these States is a wonder their Constitution a miracle their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.