How can those who are ...

How can those who are invested with the power of government be prevented from the abuse of those powers as the means of aggrandizing themselves? ... Without a strong constitution to counteract the strong tendency of government to disorder and abuse there can be little progress or improvement.
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 John C. Calhoun

Quotes from the same author

The Government of the absolute majority instead of the Government of the people is but the Government of the strongest interests; and when not efficiently checked, it is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised.
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 John C. Calhoun
Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail.
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 John C. Calhoun
Government has within it a tendency to abuse its powers.
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 John C. Calhoun
The surrender of life is nothing to sinking down into acknowledgment of inferiority.
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 John C. Calhoun
The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.
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 John C. Calhoun