Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. - James Madison

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

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 past one has done, in showing that religion and government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.