Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant. Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist. There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
Falsehood has a perennial spring.
To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men. I have in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government. The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear. The use of force alone is but temporary . Nothing less will content me, than whole America.