Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing. Human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion. … When I see that the right and the means of absolute command are conferred on any power whatever, be it called a people or a king, an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I say there is the germ of tyranny, and I seek to live elsewhere, under other laws.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer and politician
Democracy in America, 1.15 (1835) [tr. Reeve & Bowen (1862)]
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