Aristotle Quotes
When the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is called by the generic name - a constitution.
Aristotle. Politics. Translated by Benjamin Jowett, Clarendon Press, 1885, p. 1279a.
In that year Rhode Island was the only state left where only property owners (less than half the adult males) could vote and the state legislature had not been reapportioned since the original charter in 1663. The People’s Constitution was duly ratified in December 1841. The incumbents wrote a Constitution of their own and submitted it to the voters in March of 1842. It was rejected. Dorr and his followers put up a slate of candidates and were elected, Dorr as Governor. The incumbents refused to recognize the officials elected under such a “radical” system and tried to have Dorr arrested and did arrest many of his followers. Dorr then led a unsuccessful rebellion against the illegal government. Nonetheless Dorr was sentenced to life imprisonment. A new charter was submitted to the voters which expanded the voting franchise somewhat. In 1845 Governor Charles Jackson was elected having pledged to pardon Dorr, which he did immediately.
Aristotle (/ærɪˈstɒtəl/; Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs, pronounced [aristotélɛːs]; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Lyceum, the Peripatetic school of philosophy, and the Aristotelian tradition. His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, meteorology, geology and government. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him. It was above all from his teachings that the West inherited its intellectual lexicon, as well as problems and methods of inquiry. As a result, his philosophy has exerted a unique influence on almost every form of knowledge in the West and it continues to be a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion.
