He was convinced "that the concession of constitutional government has a tendency to draw the colonists" towards England and not towards republicanism; "firstly, because it slakes that thirst for self-government which seizes on all British communities when they approach maturity; and secondly because it habituates the colonists to the working of a political mechanism which is both intrinsically superior to that of the Americans, and more unlike it than our old colonial system."
"Lord Elgin"
John George Bourinot
And is not a man reproached for flattery and meanness who subordinates the spirited animal to the unruly monster, and, for the sake of money, of which he can never have enough, habituates him in the days of his youth to be trampled in the mire, and from being a lion to become a monkey?
"Plato's Republic"
Plato
That slavery is inconsistent with the genius of republicanism and has a tendency to destroy those principles on which it is supported, as it lessens the sense of the equal rights of mankind, and habituates us to tyranny and oppression.
"The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus"
American Anti-Slavery Society