There will be a Cicero now and again--or at least a Cato.

From the dead, stagnant level of personal despotism there can be no rising to life till corruption paralyzes the hands of power, and the fabric falls by its own decay Of this no proof can be found in the world's history so manifest as that taught by the Roman Empire.
I think it is made clear by a study of Cicero's life and works, up to the period of his exile, that an adhesion to the old forms of the Roman Government was his guiding principle.

I am sure that they who follow me to the close of his career will acknowledge that after his exile he lived for this principle, and that he died for it.

"Respublica," the Republic, was the one word which to his ear contained a political charm.
It was the shibboleth by which men were to be conjured into well-being.
The word constitution is nearly as potent with us.

But it is essential that the reader of Roman history and Roman biography should understand that the appellation had in it, for all Roman ears, a thoroughly conservative meaning.