“I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous
creature, and that power whether vested in many or few is ever grasping…”
Abigail (Smith) Adams (1744-1818)
Wife and counselor of President John Adams
….and here’s more of the letter she wrote to John in 1775:
“The great fish swallow up the small and he who is most
strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager
after the prerogatives of government. You tell me of degrees of perfection to
which human nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same
time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the
instances.”
Source:
David G. McCullough, John
Adams (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 101.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2014
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