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

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

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.

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes" [Letter to von Humboldt, 1813].

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.