‘An easy business’

Oliver Ellsworth in an engraving.

“When we become ignorant, vicious, idle, our liberties will be lost — we shall be fitted for slavery, and it will be an easy business to reduce us to obey one or more tyrants.’’

— Oliver Ellsworth (1745-1807), of Connecticut, a U.S. Founding Father and the third chief justice of the United States,in which position he served in 1796-1800.