No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a ce… - James Madison

If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

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 administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.

I have long thought that our vacant territory was the resource which, in some mode or other, was most applicable and adequate as a gradual cure for the portentous evil; without, however, being unaware that even that would encourage serious difficulties of different sorts.