Edmund Burke: “He positively refused to give them any account whatever; and they have never, to this very day in which we speak, had…”

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.

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.