Saturday, August 18, 2012

Forewarned But Insufficiently Forearmed


How prone all human institutions have been to decay; how subject the best-formed and most wisely organized governments have been to lose their check and totally dissolve; how difficult it has been for mankind, in all ages and countries, to preserve their dearest rights and best privileges, impelled as it were by an irresistible fate of despotism.
. . . James Monroe
Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention
1788


Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted into tyranny.
. . . Thomas Jeferson

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