politician owed the public they served. His north star was the American people and the American Constitution that had been written to secure their rights. His north star was that ancient idea of virtue that he’d learned as a boy, and it rooted and directed him even in the darkest and stormiest of times. He once quoted the poet Horace from memory: “The man who is just and firm of purpose can be shaken from his stern resolve neither by the rage of the people who urge him to crime nor by the countenance of the threatening tyrant.”
