John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson (July 9, 1813):
While all other Sciences have
advanced, that of Government is at a stand; little better understood; little
better practiced now than 3 or 4 thousand Years ago. What is the Reason?
I say Parties and Factions will not suffer, or permit Improvements to be
made. As soon as one Man hints at an improvement his Rival opposes it.
No sooner has one Party discovered or invented an Amelioration of the
Condition of Man or the order of Society, than the opposite Party, belies
it, misconstrues it, misrepresents it, ridicules it, insults it, and persecutes
it. Records are destroyed. Histories are annihilated or interpolated, or
prohibited sometimes by Popes, sometimes by Emperors, sometimes by
Aristocratical and sometimes by democratical Assemblies and sometimes
by Mobs.
Id.:
Democrats, Rebells and Jacobins, when they possessed a momentary
Power, have shewn a disposition, both to destroy and to forge Records,
as vandalical, as Priests and Despots. Such has been and such is the World
We live in.