"How came the King by a power which the People are afraid to trust, and always obliged to check? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power which needs checking be from God: Yet the provision which the constitution makes, supposes such a power to exist. But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se: For as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern: And though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavours will be ineffectual: The first moving power will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed is supplied by time."
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Of the Origin and Design of Government... (p. 8)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Common_Sense
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Common Sense
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