'Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing: human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion, and God alone can be omnipotent because His wisdom and His justice are always equal to his power. But no power on earth is so worthy of honour for itself, or of referential obedience to the rights which it represents, that I would consent to admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority. When I see that the right and the means of absolute command are conferred on a people or upon a king, upon an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I recognise the germ of tyranny, and I journey onwards to a land of ore hopeful institutions.
In my opinion the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their strength; and I am not so much alarmed at the exercise of liberty which reigns in that country as at the very inadequate securities which exist against tyranny.
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