Dean LeBaron

The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and
money began to play an important part in determining
elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread to
the law courts. And then to the army, and finally the
Republic was subjected to the rule of emperors

— Plutarch (Historian of the Roman Republic)

The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and
guided, men are seldom forced to act, but they are
constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not
destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize,
but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a
people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than
a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the
government is the shepherd

— Alexis de Tocqueville
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