We know that there is a legal presumption against men, quando se nimis purgitant; and if a charge of ambition is not refuted by an affected humility, certainly the character of fraud and perfidy is still less to be washed away by indications of meanness.
Burke asserts that false humility cannot erase accusations of ambition or deceit, emphasizing the importance of genuine character.
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But an absurd theory on one side of a question forms no justification for alleging a false fact or promulgating mischievous maxims on the other.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.
All your sophisters cannot produce anything better adapted to preserve a rational and manly freedom than the course that we have pursued, who have chosen our nature rather than our speculations, our breasts rather than our inventions, for…
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