“There is not in the whole science of politics a more solid or a more important maxim than this — that of all governments, those are the best, which, by the natural effect of their constitutions, are frequently renewed or drawn back to their first principles.”

—James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791

Lectures On Law may be read here:

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_2_5s15.html