You got it right, peace. My source for this (whose link is now broken) said this was published in 1801.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:
from bondage to spiritual faith
from spiritual faith to great courage
from courage to liberty
from liberty to abundance
from abundance to selfishness
from selfishness to complacency
from complacency to apathy
from apathy to dependency
from dependency back again to bondage.--Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) Scottish jurist and historian.
You got it right, peace. My source for this (whose link is now broken) said this was published in 1801.