On the record
Alexander Hamilton said that if every Athenian citizen had been a Socrates, still every Athenian assembly would have been a mob.
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Hoar quotes Hamilton to illustrate the potential for mob mentality in large assemblies, regardless of individual wisdom.
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Self-seeking political adventurers and demagogues have not been slow to take advantage of this feeling for their own purposes.
One of the virtues of General Sheridan was that he knew when to act without orders.
But, as I have already said, when the time came, he always subordinated his own desire to what he deemed the welfare of the public.
But their names were wanting from the honorable roll of the men who accomplished them.
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