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I know what is said by the several admirers of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. . . . [But] there is hardly one frame of government in the world so ill designed by its first founders that in good hands would not do well enough, and story tells us the best in ill ones can do nothing that is great or good. . . . Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. . . . Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavour to warp and spoil to their turn.

[A] loose and depraved people . . . love laws and an administration like themselves. That, therefore, which makes a good constitution, must keep it; viz., men of wisdom and virtue, qualities that because they descend not with worldly inheritances, must be carefully propagated by a virtuous education of youth. . . .

[W]e have (with reverence to God and good conscience to men) to the best of our skill, contrived and composed the Frame and Laws of this government [of Pennsylvania] to the great end of all government, viz., to support power in reverence with the people and to secure the people from the abuse of power, that they may be free by their just obedience, and the magistrates honourable for their just administration; for liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery.

—William Penn
Preface to the Frame of Government (1682)

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— Politics — Commonplaces #90 — July/August 2021 —