It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false ...

It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.

Alexander Hamilton in speech on 21 June 1788 urging ratification of the Constitution in New York
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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