The Constitution is likely to be well administered for a course of years and can only end in despotism as other forms have done before when the people have become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other. --Benjamin Franklin (September 17, 1787) The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension...is itself a frightful 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...on the ruins of public liberty. --George Washington (September 19, 1796) If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide. --Abraham Lincoln (January 27, 1838)