Small men took on the powers and airs of tyrants and masters. Years of unpunished brutality and bullying and rape produced a dullness and hardness of conscience. Christian men and women became blind to the clearest commands of their faith and added hypocrisy to injustice. A republic founded on equality for all became a prison for millions."
dubya


the economy and ruling elite had slaves, these were not small men, and jefferson wrote not with the air of a tyrant but of a democratic man. the rest of the rhetoric is pretty fucking thick.