Serving as American Minister to France during the early years of the French Revolution, Gouverneur Morris observed the horrors that resulted from a people unable to handle liberty.  In a letter to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, he worried about the “instability of human Affairs especially of those which depend on the Opinion of an ignorant Populace…. Thank God we have no [rabble] in America and I hope the Education and Manners will long prevent that Evil.”[1]

[1] “To Thomas Jefferson from Gouverneur Morris, 1 August 1792,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 13, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-24-02-0255. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 24, 1 June–31 December 1792, ed. John Catanzariti. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990, pp. 275–277.]