Walter Bagehot: “But it cannot judge if it is to be kept in ignorance; it cannot interpose if it does not know.”

The whole history of civilisation, is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.

If the above reasoning be sound, compulsory constituencies are necessary, voluntary constituencies destructive; the optional transferability of votes is not a salutary aid, but a ruinous innovation.

Now it is not conceivable that a race of beings with valuable instincts supporting their existence and supplying their wants would need these simple tools.

The United States could not have become monarchical, even if the Constitutional Convention had decreed it, even if the component States had ratified it.