It's not merely that they think our constitutional system is, or ought to be, sacrosanct . . . . It's that they believe . . . that once implemented, it can never be lost.
Michael Anton, "What Does Fidelity to Our Founding Principles Require Today?" American Greatness (September 26, 2022)
"Nothing has been hitherto found a sufficient check and barrier to the exorbitant passions of men . . . . Laws and Constitutions framed by the best and wisest men, have first or last become the sport and conquest of the worst, sometimes of the most foolish . . . . Could wise establishments have ensured the stability of a state, that of Rome had been immortal . . . . But she, whose force and policy no power could withstand . . . fell by the corruption and perfidiousness and violence of her own citizens"
Thomas Gordon, Discourses Upon Tacitus (1737)
Laws and constitutions suffice to check and bar the exorbitant passions of men only so long as men of exorbitant passions are weak, scarce and despised. When such men are numerous, strong and admired, they know what to do with these papers. They burn them, ignore them, emend them, or declare that their meaning is quite otherwise than was formerly supposed.
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