Page 153 - Beers With Our Founding Fathers

A Patriot’s view of the history and direction of our Country

 “We may appeal to every page of history we have hitherto

turned over, for proofs irrefragable, that the people, when
they have been unchecked, have been as unjust,

tyrannical,brutal, barbarous and cruel as any king or senate
possessed of uncontrollable power ... All projects of

government, formed upon a supposition of continual
vigilance, sagacity, and virtue, firmness of the people, when

possessed of the exercise of supreme power, are cheats and
delusions ... The fundamental article of my political creed is

that despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power,
is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an

aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto, and a single
emperor. Equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every

respect diabolical.”
 “Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right

to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers

have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their
ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.”
 “Children should be educated and instructed in the principles

of freedom.”

 “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes,
exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy

yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that
democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less

ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.
It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those

passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple

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