![]() ![]() and modern nations, in the consecrations of kings, and in several superstitious chimeras of divine rights in princes and nobles, are nearly unanimous in preserving remnants of it. “It was the general opinion of ancient nations, that the divinity alone was adequate to the important office of giving laws to men. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. ![]() “I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. ![]()
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