Edmund Burke: “On every principle which supposes society to be in virtue of a free covenant, this compulsive incorporation must be null…”

Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.

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 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…