he forgot that the best of omens is to unsheathe our sword in the defence of our country. - Edward Gibbon

I cannot repress my indignation at the use of those foolish obsolete, odious, words Whig and Tory.

But when the consular and tribunitian powers were united, when they were vested for life in a single person, when the general of the army was, at the same time, the minister of the senate and the representative of the Roman people, it was impossible to resist the exercise, nor was it easy to define the limits, of his imperial prerogative.

It has been calculated by the ablest politicians that no State, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness.