"There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our
overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another
quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their
government, from their carelessness and negligence.
I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may
place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail
properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made
the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own
undoing."
—
Daniel Webster