Edmund Burke: “It is not from Dunkirk to Hamburg that the ports are in the hands of France: they are in the hands of France from…”

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

Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.

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

This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.