Edmund Burke: “Since we are not able to reunite the empire, it is our business to give all possible vigor and soundness to those parts…”

Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.

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.

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

I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.