Edmund Burke: “What! shall there be no reserved power in the empire, to supply a deficiency which may weaken, divide, and dissipate the…”

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.

But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.

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

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.