Law and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love, unless they first become the objects of our knowledge.
What was the primary and principal object in the institution of government? Was it — I speak of the primary and principal object — was it to acquire new rights by a human establishment? Or was it, by human establishment, to acquire new security for the possession or the recovery of those rights, to the [...]
The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it.
[The President] is the dignified, but accountable magistrate of a free and great people. The tenure of his office, it is true, is not hereditary; nor is it for life: but still it is a tenure of the noblest kind: by being the man of the people, he is invested; by continuing to be the [...]
Slavery, or an absolute and unlimited power in the master over the life and fortune of the slave, is unauthorized by the common law. Indeed, it is repugnant to the principles of natural law, that such a state should subsist in any social system. The reasons which we sometimes see assigned for the origin and [...]
