If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.

By a series of violent shocks, the nations in succession have struggled to shake off the Past, to reverse the action of Time and the verdict of success, and to rescue the world from the reign of the dead.

Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right to do what we ought.

Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country.