In no instance have the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.
And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?
The happy Union of these States is a wonder their Constitution a miracle their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.
The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.
Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly...
Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every p...
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.
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
Since the general civilization of mankind I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and s...
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be admi...
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exer...
If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.