If This Spirit Shall Ever Be So

In All Great Changes Of Established Governments, Forms Ought To Give Way To Substance

Religious Bondage Shackles And Debilitates The Mind And Unfits It For Every Noble Enterprise.... During Almost Fifteen Centuries Has The Legal Establishment Of Christianity Been On Trial. What Have Been Its Fruits? More Or Less, In All Places, Pride And Indolence In The Clergy; Ignorance And Servility In Laity; In Both, Superstition, Bigotry, And Persecution.

The Proposed Constitution Is, In Strictness, Neither A National Nor A Federal Constitution; But A Composition Of Both.

The Great Objects Which Presented Themselves [to The Constitutional Convention] ... Formed A Task More Difficult Than Can Be Well Conceived By Those Who Were Not Concerned In The Execution Of It. Adding To These Considerations The Natural Diversity Of Human Opinions On All New And Complicated Subjects, It Is Impossible To Consider The Degree Of Concord Which Ultimately Prevailed As Less Than A Miracle.

The Danger From Legislative Usurpations, Which, By Assembling All Power In The Same Hands, Must Lead To The Same Tyranny As Is Threatened By Executive Usurpations.