1770: John Adams: “trust no man living with power”

John Adams again, in one of his eternal themes – This is from a journal entry, in 1770:

Ambition is one of the more ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable … There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

This entry was posted in Founding Fathers and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.