Find Insurance Online

The "ardent glow of freedom gradually evaperates;--the charms of popular equality . . . insensibly decline;--the pleasures, the advantages derived from the new kind of government grow stale through use. Such declension in all these vigorous springs of actions necessarily produces a supineness. The altar of liberty is no longer watched with such attentive assiduity;--a new train of passions succeeds to the empire of the mind;--different objects of desire take place:--and, if the nation happens to enjoy a series of prosperity, volumptuousness, excessive fondness for riches, and luxury gain admission and establish themselves--these produce venality and corruption of every kind, which open a fatal avenue to bribery. Hence it follows, that in the midst of this general contageon a few men--or one--more powerful than all others, industriously endeavor to obtain all authority; and by means of great wealth--or embezzling the public money,--perhaps totally subvert the government, and erect a system of aristocratical or monarchic tyranny in its room. What ready means for this work of evil are numerous standing armies, and the disposition of the great revenue of the United States! . . . All nations pass this parokism of vice at some period or other;--and if at that dangerous juncture your government is not secure upon a solid foundation, and well guarded against the machinations of evil men, the liberties of this country will be lost--perhaps forever!"

Source: The Impartial Examiner, Essay (March 5, 1788), 5.14.15, in Herbert J. Storing, ed., The Anti-Federalist, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985, p. 290-91.