Edmund Burke: “I knew that, attacked on all sides by the infernal energies of talents set in action by vice and disorder, authority…”

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

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.

The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.