Edmund Burke: “In its sleep it recruits its strength and prepares its exertion.”

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

Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.

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.