Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville
“Among small nations, the eye of society sees everywhere; the spirit of improvement reaches the smallest details; national ambition is much affected by weakness; the efforts and the resources of the people turn almost entirely toward their inner prosperity and they are not prone to waste their labors upon the empty dreams of reputation…The ambitions of individual citizens grow with the power of the state…Great wealth, abject poverty, big cities, lax morality, personal egotism, and the confusion of interests are dangers just as likely to arise from the size of states…It is, therefore, permissible to say that in general terms nothing opposes the prosperity and freedom of men as much as great empires.”
Washington’s Farewell Address
“This spirit, [of political parties] unfortunately, is inseperable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, naturally to party dissention, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his cempetitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.”
1 Comment
May 21, 2009 at 5:08 am
You should def. read what Madison had to say about Factions.