The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold on us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered. [Query XIII, “Constitution”]

I sincerely wish with you we could see our government so secured as to depend less on the character of the person in whose hands it is trusted. bad men will sometimes get in, & with such an immense patronage, may make great progress in corrupting the public mind & principles. this is a...

The question you propose, Whether circumstances do not sometimes occur which make it a duty in officers of high trust to assume authorities beyond the law, is easy of solution in principle, but sometimes embarrasing in practice. a strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high...

To this a single observation shall yet be added. Whether property alone, and the whole of what each citizen possesses, shall be subject to contribution, or only it’s surplus after satisfying his first wants, or whether the faculties of body and mind shall contribute also from their annual...

My father read law under Mr Jefferson’s direction, and once became uncertain in his own mind whether the practice of law was compatible with perfect truthfulness, he once asked Mr Jefferson “do you believe in he once said to Mr Jefferson “I have made up my mind never to utter a word with my lips,...

the laws of the land are the inheritance & the right of every man, before whatever tribunal he is brought.