“"The will of the nation" is one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every age.”

— Alexis De Tocqueville, book Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter I-V, Chapter IV.

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Alexis De Tocqueville135

French political thinker and historian 1805–1859

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“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.”

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“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.”

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“p>Finally my Hiawatha
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(Hiawatha seemed to think so,
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“If the war is lost, the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence. On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation (Russia). Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed.”

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“"The will of the nation" is one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every age.”

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Alexis De Tocqueville135

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