The framers hated the tyranny of King George, but they were also

When David Ignatius wrote, “The framers hated the tyranny of King George, but they were also afraid of the mob. That's why they put so many checks and balances into our system, to guard against the excesses of a government that might be inflamed by public passion or perverted by a dictator's whim,” he captured in one breath the delicate genius of the American experiment. These words are a meditation on the eternal struggle between order and freedom, between the passions of the people and the perils of power. The Founders, having tasted the bitter wine of monarchy, were determined never again to bow before a tyrant — yet they were equally wary of chaos, knowing that liberty unrestrained by reason can devour itself. Ignatius’s insight reminds us that the Constitution was not forged in idealism alone, but in fear and wisdom intertwined: fear of domination, and wisdom born of experience.

The origin of this idea lies in the minds of the Founding Fathers — men like James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington, who had lived through the Revolution and seen both the arrogance of kings and the volatility of crowds. In their debates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, they wrestled with the paradox of human nature: that man, though capable of virtue, is also drawn to corruption; that power, though necessary, tends to corrupt absolutely. Thus, they devised a system of checks and balances, a structure that diffused authority across branches — legislative, executive, and judicial — so that no one force, whether monarch or mob, could dominate the republic. Ignatius, centuries later, gives voice to this ancient anxiety — that freedom must be protected not only from tyrants, but from ourselves.

When he speaks of the “tyranny of King George,” Ignatius calls forth the memory of colonial suffering: the unjust taxes, the stifled voices, the soldiers quartered in homes, and the laws imposed without consent. The revolution that followed was a cry for dignity — yet once freedom was won, the Founders confronted a new terror: the tyranny of public passion. They had seen, in the fires of the French Revolution and in the turmoil of local uprisings, how easily liberty could collapse into lawlessness. To them, the mob was no less dangerous than the monarch. Both could destroy the delicate equilibrium of justice. Thus, in their wisdom, they built a government of restraint — one that moved slowly by design, that required deliberation before action, and that set the rule of law as the shield of both ruler and ruled.

History offers proof of the necessity of such caution. Consider the French Revolution, born in the same spirit of freedom that inspired America, yet consumed by its own zeal. In their fury against kings and nobles, the revolutionaries cast aside order and reason, replacing one tyranny with another — the guillotine for the crown, Robespierre for Louis XVI. Their cry for liberty became a chorus of blood, and from that chaos arose Napoleon, the self-made emperor. It was precisely this fate that the framers sought to avoid: the transformation of freedom into anarchy, and anarchy into dictatorship. Ignatius’s words remind us that democracy, if it is to endure, must be disciplined — that passion must yield to principle, and majority rule must be bound by moral law.

In the modern world, his message remains a living warning. The “mob” today may not gather with torches in the streets, but with voices on the airwaves and hands upon the screens. The power of public opinion, amplified by technology, can inflame nations faster than any king’s decree. Governments, if swept away by emotion or fear, may trample justice in the name of safety, or surrender truth to the convenience of the crowd. The framers’ design, with its deliberate slowness, stands as a bulwark against such storms. It demands patience, dialogue, and humility — qualities increasingly rare in an age of instant outrage. Ignatius urges us to remember that the wisdom of the Founders was not in speed or simplicity, but in balance: a government that resists both the iron hand of despotism and the reckless tide of the mob.

Yet we must not mistake their caution for distrust of the people. The Founders believed in the capacity for virtue, but they also knew virtue must be cultivated — through education, civility, and conscience. A people without discipline will produce a government without direction. The checks and balances they designed were not chains to bind liberty, but guardrails to keep it from plunging into the abyss. Ignatius’s quote calls upon each generation to be both citizen and steward — to temper passion with thought, and to hold leaders accountable not to sentiment, but to principle.

The lesson is clear and eternal: freedom endures only where restraint and reason dwell beside it. The framers’ fear was not of the people, but of power ungoverned — whether wielded by a monarch, a demagogue, or the collective fury of the crowd. Their answer was not suppression, but structure — a republic built upon reflection and choice rather than impulse and chance. To honor their design, we must cultivate the habits of patience, dialogue, and moral courage. For in the end, the true strength of democracy is not in its passion, but in its prudence; not in its noise, but in its conscience.

So let us remember: a free nation must guard itself from both crown and crowd. The tyranny of one man and the tyranny of many are but different faces of the same danger — the surrender of judgment to emotion. The Founders, wise in their fear, built a republic to withstand both. Let us be worthy of that inheritance — to govern not as slaves to impulse, but as servants of wisdom, ensuring that liberty, once won, is never lost to the very passions that gave it birth.