"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
"A government of laws, and not of men."
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Source: Novanglus Papers no. 7 (1774). Almost certainly derived from James Harrington, but Adams's use of the phrase gave it wide circulation in the United States. He also used government of laws, and not of men in the Declaration of Rights drafted for the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780. See Cox 1; Gerald Ford 3; James Harrington 1
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"There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitution."
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