Edmund Burke: “The favour of the people might lead even to a disqualification of representing them.”

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.

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

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…

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