As I said before, when society has entered on this downward progress, either civilisation or liberty must perish. Either some Caesar or Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand, and your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid to waste by the barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth, with the difference that the Huns and Vandals who ravaged the Roman empire came from without; and that your Huns and Vandals will have been engendered within your own country by your own institutions.
Thomas Babington Macaulay – Letter to Secretary of State Henry S. Randall
Found the original here. I’ll have another tomorrow.
The barbarians that brought down the Roman Empire were allowed to immigrate in order to provide trrops for the Roman army.
Google up Alaric some time.
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