But after the spirit of conquest had changed the first governments, all the succeeding ones have, in general, proved one continued series of injustice, which has reigned in all countries for almost four thousand years.
Ezra StilesAll the forms of civil polity have been tried by mankind, except one, and that seems to have been reserved in Providence to be realized in America. Most of the states, of all ages ...have been founded in rapacity, usurpation, and injustice; so that in the contests recorded in history ...the military history of all nations being but a description of the wars and invasions of the mutual robbers and devastators of the human race.
Ezra Stiles