If they be required to elect representatives, to support the Government by personal service, to meet on public business, they have no time--they cannot waste their precious time in useless engagements: such idle amusements are unsuited to serious men who are engaged with the more important interests of life.

These people think they are following the principle of self-interest, but the idea they entertain of that principle is a very rude one; and the better to look after what they call their business, they neglect their chief business, which is to remain their own masters.
As the citizens who work do not care to attend to public business, and as the class which might devote its leisure to these duties has ceased to exist, the place of the Government is, as it were, unfilled.

If at that critical moment some able and ambitious man grasps the supreme power, he will find the road to every kind of usurpation open before him.

If he does but attend for some time to the material prosperity of the country, no more will be demanded of him.

Above all he must insure public tranquillity: men who are possessed by the passion of physical gratification generally find out that the turmoil of freedom disturbs their welfare, before they discover how freedom itself serves to promote it.