The Influences of Democracy on Liberty, Property, and the Happiness of Society, Considered

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J. W. Parker, 1835 - 199 trang
 

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Trang 141 - Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect in the forms of the constitution alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.
Trang 141 - In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of Governments as of other human institutions...
Trang 141 - Liberty itself will find in such a government with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.
Trang 32 - May you long enjoy that liberty which is so dear to you, and to which your name will ever be so dear. May your own virtues and a nation's prayers obtain the happiest sunshine for the decline of your days and the choicest of future blessings. For our country's sake, for the sake of republican liberty, it is our earnest wish that your example may be the guide of your successors, and thus, after being the ornament and safeguard of the present age, become the patrimony of our descendants.
Trang 74 - A democracy cannot last. Its nature ordains that its next change shall be into a military despotism — of all known governments perhaps the most prone to shift its head, and the slowest to mend its vices. The reason is that the tyranny of what is called the people, and that by the sword, both operate alike to debase and corrupt, till there are neither men left with the spirit to desire liberty, nor morals with the power to sustain justice. Like the burning pestilence that destroys the human body,...

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