Edmund Burke: “Presumptions stand no longer than till the contrary is proved.”

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.

If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.

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.