“Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm,” –James Madison, “No.10,” The Federalist Papers

Lamenting the “dilatoriness of Congress” Thomas Jefferson asked, “how can expedition be expected from a body which we have saddled with a hundred lawyers, whose trade is talking?”[1]

[1] “Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Leiper, 12 June 1815,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 13, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-08-02-0431. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 8, 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011, pp. 531–534.]