Edmund Burke: “But when the reason of old establishments is gone, it is absurd to preserve nothing but the burden of them.”

They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.

Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.

I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have…

They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.