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On the other hand, in a State where the citizens are nearly on an equality, it becomes difficult for them to preserve their independence against the aggressions of power.

The defining character of American constitutional government is its constant tension between security and liberty, serving both by partial helpings of each.

It is better for those who have almost unlimited power of government in their hands to err on the side of freedom.

A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.

Government has a right to survive and powers conferred upon it are not necessarily set at naught by the express prohibitions of the Bill of Rights.

One of the chief virtues of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.

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.

A President may sense and proclaim that new spirit, but only a people can provide it.

There is no act which more imperatively requires to be performed under a strong sense of individual responsibility than the nomination to employments.

For the first time in our history the person elected to the Vice-Presidency of the United States, by the happening of a contingency provided for in the Constitution, has had devolved upon him the Presidential office.

in the exercise of this high power, we must be ever on our guard, lest we erect our prejudices into legal principles

This custom of ostracism was not intended as a punishment for crime, but was called, in order to give it a plausible title, a check to excessive power.

Presidential powers are not fixed but fluctuate, depending upon their disjunction or conjunction with those of Congress.

Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him?

I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make

The power of one person — Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan, Malala — one person can change the world by giving people hope.

Great distance in either time or space has wonderful power to lull and render quiescent the human mind.

our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint

Our constitutional system amply provides for the protection of minorities by means other than giving them majority control of state legislatures.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.

The law, whether human or divine, is no respecter of persons; but the law is a respecter of reality.

For he that thinks absolute power purifies men's blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need read but the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced of the contrary.

The concepts of "majority" and "minority" necessarily reflect temporary arrangements and political judgments.

Wherefore the nature of a multitude is no more to be blamed than the nature of princes, since both equally err when they can do so without regard to consequences.