Edmund Burke: “Weather-beaten ships have been brought safe to port by the spirit and alertness of the crew.”

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.

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.

I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have…