It has been observed by an honourable gentleman [he said] that a
pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect
government. Experience has proved that no position in politics is
more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people
themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good
government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure
deformity. When they assembled, the field of debate presented an
ungovernable mob, not only incapable of deliberation, but prepared
for every enormity. In these assemblies the enemies of the people
brought forward their plans of ambition systematically. They were
opposed by their enemies of another party; and it became a matter
of contingency, whether the people subjected themselves to be led
blindly by one tyrant or another.
Again he says, in reply to Melancthon Smith:--
It is a harsh doctrine that men grow wicked as they improve and
enlighten their minds. Experience has by no means justified us in
the supposition that there is more virtue in one class of men than
in another.
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