6557. PEOPLE, Ascendency of.—
Lay
down true principles and adhere to them
inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their
surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the
croakings of wealth against the ascendency
of the people. If experience be called for,
appeal to that of our fifteen or twenty governments
for forty years, and show me
where the people have done half the mischief
in these forty years, that a single despot
would have done in a single year; or show
half the riots and rebellions, the crimes and
the punishments, which have taken place in
any single nation, under kingly government,
during the same period.—
To Samuel Kerchival. Washington ed. vii, 11.
Ford ed., x, 39.
(M.
1816)
