Majority Rule Quotes

Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.

The fundamental principle of our constitution ... enjoins the sense of command, duty that the will of the majority shall prevail.

In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.

Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends; the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them.

If the minority, and a small one too, is suffered to dictate to the majority, after measures have undergone the most solemn discussions by the representatives of the people, and their will through this medium is enacted into a law, there can be no security for life, liberty, or property; nor, if the laws are not to govern, can any man know how to conduct himself in safety.

The terrible tyranny of the majority.

Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable.

Democracy is necessarily despotism, as it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one whose opinion may differ, the will of all is therefore not that of all: which is contradictory and opposite to liberty.

Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.

It is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.

And where else will [Hume,] this degenerate son of science, this traitor to his fellow men, find the origin of just powers, if not in the majority of the society? Will it be in the minority? Or in an individual of that minority?

But if the laws are to be so trampled upon with impunity, and a minority is to dictate to the majority, there is an end put at one stroke to republican government, and nothing but anarchy and confusion is to be expected thereafter.