Walter Bagehot: “This is what, according to ethnology, we should expect the first historic man to be, and this is what we in fact find…”

The United States could not have become monarchical, even if the Constitutional Convention had decreed it, even if the component States had ratified it.

The whole history of civilisation, is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.

Perhaps such powers as these are what a wise man would most seek to exercise and least fear to possess.

They say, We reject your Bill for this once or these twice, or even these thrice: but if you keep on sending it up, at last we won't reject it.