Power always thinks it has a great Soul,
and vast Views, beyond the Comprehension of the Weak;
and that it is doing God Service, when it is violating all his Laws.
Our Passions, Ambition, Avarice, Love, Resentment &c
possess so much metaphysical Subtilty and so much overpowering Eloquence,
that they insinuate themselves into the Understanding and the Conscience
and convert both to their Party.
And I may be deceived as much as any of them, when I Say,
that Power must never be trusted without a Check.
John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1816
