Edmund Burke: “These people are only made to be the sport of tyrants.”

Their trust for the future preservation of the Constitution was not in future revolutions.

But supposing they had ranked as they ought to do, and as with us they do actually, the sides of sick-beds are not the academies for forming statesmen and legislators.

They have little regard to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of this country.

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