The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.
From James F. Cooper
The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms.
The very existence of government at all, infers inequality. The citizen who is preferred to office becomes the superior to those who are not, so long as he is the repository of power, and the child inherits the wealth of the parent as a controlling law of society.
It is a misfortune that necessity has induced men to accord greater license to this formidable engine, in order to obtain liberty, than can be borne with less important objects in view; for the press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master.
Party leads to vicious, corrupt and unprofitable legislation, for the sole purpose of defeating party.
It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.
Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other.
They who have reasoned ignorantly, or who have aimed at effecting their personal ends by flattering the popular feeling, have boldly affirmed that 'one man is as good as another;' a maxim that is true in neither nature, revealed morals, nor political theory.
Systems are to be appreciated by their general effects, and not by particular exceptions.
Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion.
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