SO-CALLED FOUNDING FATHERS ON THE "NATURE" OF MAN AND ON CONTROLS THEREFORE NEEDED "All authority belongs to the people" said Jefferson, but he knew the principle would be forgotten. "The spirit of our times may alter," he wrote in his Notes on Virginia; and then he corrected "may alter" to read "will alter." The spirit of our times will alter: "Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. They will be forgotten and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, except in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights." (Pages xix and xx.) * * "...in the Virginia Convention of 1788, the same abiding truths were to be elequently expressed. One of the most interesting men in that constellation of greatness was a rough countryman, William Grayson. On June 21, he arose to respond to the pleas of Madison, Marshall, Edmund Randolph, and others that greater trust and confidence should be reposed in the men -- and especially the judges -- who would occupy high office under the new Constitution. "Mr. Chairman, said Grayson, 'it seems to have been a rule with the gentlemen on the other side, to argue from the excellency of human nature, in order to induce us to grant away the rights and liberties of our country. I have no doubt the same arguments were used in a variety of occasions. I suppose, Sir, that same argument was used when Cromwell was invested with power. The same argument was used to gain our assent to the stamp act. I have no doubt it has been invariably the argument in all countries, when the concession of power has been in agitation. But power ought to have such checks and limitations as to prevent bad men from abusing it. It ought to be granted on a supposition that men will be bad; for it may be eventually so. (Pages xxiii and xxiv.) * * The same idea occurs in the famed Kentucky Resolution: "In questions of power, let no more be heard of confi- dence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." (Page xxv.) - Extracts from Preface to WE THE STATES, by James J. Kilpatrick (The William Byrd Press, Inc., Richmond, Virginia) NOTE: I would paraphrase the last quotation as follows: