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[Popular opinions] will all be such as the multitude have an interest, or which is the same thing a
pleasure, in believing. Of these, one of the dearest and most delusive is, that the power of the
people is their liberty. Yet they can have no liberty without many strong and obnoxious restraints
upon their power. To break down these restraints, to remove these courts and judges, these senates
and constitutions, which are insolently as well as artfully raised above the people's heads to keep
them out of their reach, will always be the interested counsel of demagogues and the welcome labour
of the multitude. The actual state of popular opinion will be ever hostile to the real and efficient
securities of the public liberty. The spirit of '76 is yet invoked by the democrats, because they,
erroneously enough, understand it as a spirit to subvert an old government, and not to preserve old
rights. Of all flattery, the grossest (gross indeed to blasphemy) is, that the voice of the people
is the voice of God; that the opinion of the majority ... is infallible. Hence it is, that the public
tranquillity has, and the democrats say ought to have, no more stable basis than popular caprice; hence
compacts and constitutions are deemed binding only so long as they are liked by a majority. The temple
of the public liberty has no better foundation, than the shifting sands of the desert. It is apparent
then that pleasing delusions must become popular creeds. After habit has made praise one of the wants
of vanity, it cannot be expected that reproof will be sought or endured, a stomach spoiled by sweets
will loathe its medicines. Prudence and duty will be silent.
An individual rarely passes unpunished, who forms and prosecutes his plan of life under a great mistake
of his own qualifications and character. And shall democracy, which is sure to overstretch its rights,
to despise its duties, to entrust its traitors and persecute its patriots, to demolish its own bulwarks
and invite the host of its assailants to come in, shall such a system last long, or enjoy any degree of
tranquillity while it lasts? It is impossible ....
They [the constitutional framers] intended our government should be a republic, which differs more widely
from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism .... We are sliding down into the mire of a democracy,
which pollutes the morals of the citizens before it swallows up their liberties. Our vanity is the parent
of our errors, and these, now grown vices, will be the artificers of our fate.
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