🎨 George Caleb Bingham, Self-Portrait, 1877

"One of the earliest forms of government, and one of the worst, was the true democracy, in which every question was submitted to the will of the people. We see outbursts of this even in our own day in what is known as mob rule. It naturally and inevitably degenerated into demagoguery."

📜 George S. Patton, 1933
🎨 George Caleb Bingham, Canvassing for a Vote, 1852

"I told Cameahwait that I was sorry to find that they had put so little confidence in us, that I knew they were not acquainted with white men and therefore could forgive them. That among white men it was considered disgraceful to lie, or entrap an enemy by falsehood. I told him if they continued to think thus meanly of us, that they might rely on it that no white men would ever come to trade with them, or bring them arms and ammunition; and that, if the bulk of his nation still entertained this opinion, I still hoped that there were some among them that were not afraid to die."

📜 Meriwether Lewis, Journal Entry, 1805
🎨 Charles Marion Russell, Lewis and Clark Meeting the Mandans, 1897

🎨 Francis William Edmonds, The Thirsty Drover, 1856

🎨 Thomas Proudley Otter, On the Road, 1860