When the insatiate jaws of the populace are fired with the thirst of liberty, and when the people, urged on by evil ministers, drains in its thirst the cup, not of tempered liberty, but unmitigated license; then the magistrates and chiefs, if they are not utterly subservient and remiss, and shameless promoters of the popular licentiousness, are pursued, incriminated, accused, and cried down under the title of despots and tyrants.
So that it inevitably happens in a commonwealth thus revolutionized, that liberalism abounds in all directions, due authority is found wanting even in private families, and misrule seems to extend even to the animals that witness it. Then the father fears the son, and the son neglects the father. All modesty is banished; they become far too liberal for that. No difference is made between the citizen and the alien; the master dreads and cajoles his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters. The young men assume the gravity of sages, and sages must stoop to follies of children, lest they should be hated and oppressed by them. At length the termination of all this infinite licentiousness is, that the minds of the citizens become so fastidious and effeminate, that when they observe even the slightest exertion of authority they grow angry and seditious, and thus the laws begin to be neglected.
It appears that this extreme license, which is the only liberty in the eyes of the vulgar, is such that from it as a sort of root, tyrants naturally arise and spring up. Thus we find in the weather, the soil, and the animal constitution, the most favorable conditions are sometimes suddenly converted by their excess into the contrary, and this fact is especially observable in political governments; and this excessive liberty soon brings the people collectively and individually to an excessive servitude. For this extreme liberty easily introduces the reign of tyranny, the severest of all unjust slaveries.