Real liberty, he thought, was to be preserved, only by preserving the authority of the laws, and maintaining the energy of government.

Scarcely did society present two characters which, in his opinion, less resembled each other, than a patriot and a demagogue.
No man has ever appeared upon the theatre of public action, whose integrity was more incorruptible, or whose principles were more perfectly free from the contamination of those selfish and unworthy passions, which find their nourishment in the conflicts of party.
Having no views which required concealment, his real and avowed motives were the same; and his whole correspondence does not furnish a single case, from which even an enemy would infer that he was capable, under any circumstances, of stooping to the employment of duplicity.
No truth can be uttered with more confidence than that his ends were always upright, and his means always pure.

He exhibits the rare example of a politician to whom wiles were absolutely unknown, and whose professions to foreign governments, and to his own countrymen, were always sincere.

In him was fully exemplified the real distinction, which forever exists, between wisdom and cunning, and the importance as well as truth of the maxim that "honesty is the best policy." If Washington possessed ambition, that passion was, in his bosom, so regulated by principles, or controlled by circumstances, that it was neither vicious, nor turbulent.

Intrigue was never employed as the means of its gratification, nor was personal aggrandizement its object.