“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”
― Thomas Jefferson
"In the discussions to which this interest has given rise and in the arrangements by which they may terminate the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. "
-- James Monroe, speech to the US Congress on December 2, 1823