Gouverneur Morris quotes
In adopting a republican form of government, I not only took it as a man does his wife, for better or for worse, but what a few men do with their wives, I took it knowing all of it bad qualities. Neither ingratitude, therefore, nor slander can disappoint expectation nor excite surprise. If, in arduous circumstances, the voice of my country should call for my services, and i have the well founded belief, that they can be useful, they shall certainly be rendered; but I hope that no such circumstances will arise and in the mean time, 'pleas'd let me trifle away.
Gouverneur Morris
We have had here within these few days some serious scenes, at which I am not surprised, because I foresaw not only a struggle between the two corps, which the constitution had organized, viz. the executive (so called) and the legislative. But I was convinced that the latter would get the better. Such is the natural, and indeed the necessary order of things. It is nevertheless a painful reflection, that one of the finest countries in the world should be so cruelly torn to pieces. The storrn which lately raged is a little subsided, but the winds must soon arise again, and perhaps from the same, perhaps from another quarter. But that is of but little consequence, since in every case we must expect a little rage and devastation. A man, attached to his fellow men, must see with the same distress the woes they suffer, whether arising from an army or from a mob, and whether those by whom they are inflicted speak French or German.
Gouverneur Morris