Power (arbitrary)

.—Where any one person or body of men, who do not represent the whole, seize into their handss the power in the last resort, there is properly no longer a government, but what Aristotle and his followers call the abuse and corruption of one. I look upon Arbitrary Power as a greater evil than Anarchy itself; as much as a savage is a happier state of life than a slave at the oar. Whoever argues in defence of absolute power in a single person, ought in all free states to be treated as the common enemy of mankind.