Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome. If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it;… It were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty?… No, if these columns fall, they will be raised not again…. they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw, the edifice of constitutional American liberty.

Daniel Webster (1782-1852) American statesman, lawyer, orator

“The Character of Washington,” speech on G. Washington centennial, Washington, D.C. (22 Feb 1832)