Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Quote of the day (Gouverneur Morris)

Too bad that the following doesn't really seem to apply to the present...

Gouverner Morris to Thomas Penn, 1774:
These sheep [the people], simple as they are, cannot be gulled as heretofore.... The mob begin to think and to reason. Poor reptiles! it is with them a vernal morning, they are struggling to cast off their winter's slough, they bask in the sunshine, and ere noon they will bite, depend upon it. The gentry begin to fear this.
(As quoted, at more length, in Jason Frank, Constituent Moments, Duke Univ. Press, 2010, pp.86-7.)

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