Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

Every people may establish what form of government they please, and change it as they please, the will of the nation being the only thing essential.