University of Virginia Library

7187. REFORM, Constitutional.—

Happily
for us that when we find our constitutions
defective and insufficient to secure the happiness of our people, we can assemble
with all the coolness of philosophers, and set
them to rights, while every other nation on
earth must have recourse to arms to amend,
or to restore their constitutions.—
To M. Dumas. Washington ed. ii, 264.
(P. 1787)