有些人以道貌岸然的崇敬态度看待宪法，认为它们就像盟约的弧线，神圣不可侵犯。他们认为前一个时代的人比人类更有智慧，并认为他们的所作所为是无可修正的。我很了解那个年纪；我属于它，并与它一起劳动。它配得上它的国家。这很像现在，但没有现在的经验；四十年的从政经验抵得上百年的读书；如果他们从死里复活，他们自己也会这么说。
(Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead.)
