"The President Madison wrote: 'When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of its citizens. If a majority be united by common interests, the rights of the minority will be insecure.' Justice Story says that the people must be reminded of the fundamental truth in a republican government, 'that the minority have indisputable and inalienable rights; that the majority are not everything and the minority nothing; that the people may not do what they please.'"
-Lord Acton, as excerpted from his essay, The Civil War in America; Its Place in History, from The Collected Works of Lord Acton
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