GOUVERNEUR MORRIS

This magistrate is not the king. The people are the king.

Religion is the solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God.

If the people should elect, they will never fail to prefer some man of distinguished character, or services; some man, if he might so speak of continental reputation.

Americans need never fear their government because of the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation.

In England, a Majority of Citizens does not elect the Majority of Representatives.

Opposition will act as an outward conscience and prevent the abuse of power.

One interest must be opposed to another interest. Vices, as they exist, must be turned against each other.

Democracy! Savage and Wild!—thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous to the level of folly and guilt! Thou child of squinting envy and self-tormenting spleen.

I care nothing more for your actings and doings.

No State without its consent shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

Give the votes to people who have no property and they will sell them to the rich, who will be able to buy them.

The best picture I can give of the French Nation, is that of Cattle before a Thunder Storm.

The mob begins to think and reason. Poor reptiles!

A factious spirit prevails from one end of our country to the other. And by that spirit both Senators and Representatives are chosen. By that spirit the government acts; and, as to the provisions of the Constitution, however they may fill up the space of a speech to round off a period, or perfume a flower of rhetoric, they cannot restrain men heated in the chase of party game.

The Senate, in my poor opinion, is little if any check, either on the President or the House of Representatives. It has not the disposition. The members of both Houses are creatures, which, though differently born, are begotten in the same way and by the same sire. They have of course the same temper. But their opposition, were they disposed to make any, would be feeble. They would easily be borne down by the other House, in which the power resides. The President can indeed do what he pleases, provided always it shall please him to please those, who lead a majority of the Representatives.

We the People ….

Federal judges will never be so wild, so absurd, so mad as to pretend that they are superior to the legislative power of America.

Since it was evidently the intention of our fellow-citizens to make Mr. Jefferson their President, it seems proper to fulfill that intention.

The new States will know less of the public interest than these; will have an interest in many respects different; in particular will be little scrupulous of involving the community in wars, the burdens and operations of which would fall chiefly on the maritime States. Provision ought, therefore, to be made to prevent the maritime States from being hereafter outvoted by them…. They would not be able to furnish men equally enlightened to share in the administration of our common interests. The busy haunts of men, not the remote wilderness, was the proper school of political talents. If the Western people get power into their hands, they will ruin the Atlantic interest. The back members are always most averse to the best measures…. You have no authority to throw the rights and property of this people into the 'hotch-pot' with the wild men on the Missouri, nor with the mixed, though more respectable, race of Anglo-Hispano-Gallo-Americans who bask on the sands in the mouth of the Mississippi....

American have become unruly steeds.

Religion is the only solid Base of morals and that Morals are the only possible Support of free governments.

There must be religion. When that ligament is torn, society is disjointed and its members perish... [T]he most important of all lessons is the denunciation of ruin to every state that rejects the precepts of religion.

Nine-tenths of the people are at present freeholders... The time is not distant when this country will abound with mechanics and manufacturers who will receive their bread from their employers. Will such men be the secure and faithful guardians of liberty? Give the votes to people who have no property, and they will sell them to the rich who will be able to buy them.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I anticipate the day when to command respect in the remotest regions it will be sufficient to say I am an American. Our flag shall then wave in glory over the ocean and our commerce feel no restraint but what our own government may impose. Happy thrice happy day. Thank God, to reach this envied state we need only to will. Yes my countrymen. Our destiny depends on our will. But if we would stand high on the record of time that will must be inflexible.