Edmund Burke: “No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening government.”

Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.

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.

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