Tea Partiers are fast becoming the most admired group in America--the new "greatest generation"--because they may, if they stay focused on principles, preserve (conserve) liberty for future generations. See excerpts from Andrew Jackson's "Valedictory," March 4, 1837, below:
"Knowing that the path of freedom is continually beset by enemies who often assume the disguise of friends, I have devoted the last hour of my public life to warn you of the danger. The progress of the United States under our free and happy institutions has surpassed the most sanguine hopes of the founders of the Republic. Our growth has been rapid beyond all former example, in numbers, in wealth, in knowledge, and all the useful arts. . . and from the earliest age of history to the present day, there never have been thirteen millions of people associated together in one political body who enjoyed so much freedom and happiness as the people of the United States.
You have no longer any cause to fear danger from abroad. . . . It is from within, among yourselves, from cupidity, from corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst for power, that factions will be formed and liberty endangered.
It is against such designs, whatever disguise the actors may assume, that you have especially to guard yourselves. You have the highest of human trusts committed to your care. Providence has showered on this favored land blessings without number and has chosen you as the guardians of freedom to preserve it for the benefit of the human race. May He . . . enable you, with pure hearts and pure hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend to the end of time the great charge he has committed to your keeping. . . .
I thank God that my life has been spent in a land of liberty. . . ."(Excerpts as they appear in "Our Ageless Constitution," - See