“Let us remember that
revolutions do not always establish freedom.
Our own free institutions were not the offspring
of our Revolution. They existed before.
They were planted in the free charters of self-government
under which the English colonies grew up,
and our Revolution only freed us from the dominion
of a foreign power whose government was
at variance with those institutions.”

Millard Fillmore (1800-1874), 13th U.S. President,
State of the Union Address, 6 December 1852.