John Adams

I must own to you that the daring traits of ambition and intrigue, and those unbridled rivalries which have already appeared, are the most melancholy and alarming systems that I have ever seen in this country...Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.

(1735 - 1826)

Second president of the United States; lawyer; keen student of government, law, and human behavior.  A pragmatic idealist to the end...