Bernard Bailyn

“Power always and everywhere had had a pernicious, corrupting effect upon men. It "converts a good man in private life to a tyrant in office." It acts upon men like drink: it "is known to be intoxicating in its nature"—"too intoxicating and liable to abuse." And nothing within man is sufficiently strong to guard against these effects of power—certainly not "the united considerations of reason and religion," for they have never "been sufficiently powerful to restrain these lusts of men.”

“For "as great a blessing as government is," the Rev. Peter Whitney explained, "like other blessings, it may become a scourge, a curse, and severe punishment to a people." What made it so, what turned power into a malignent force, was not its own nature so much as the nature of man—his susceptibility to corruption and his lust for self-aggrandizement.”