Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavour to warp and spoil it to their turn.
Thomas Clarkson, William Penn (1827). “Memoirs of the private and public life of William Penn: who settled the state of Pennsylvania, and founded the city of Philadelphia”, p.117