Edmund Burke: “By this means our liberty becomes a noble freedom.”

The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.

Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?

This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.

Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?