Liveblogging Madison and Jefferson: The Revolution You Planned Is Not the Revolution You'll Get

"Among the middling sorts of people, hope of a new social order died hard. But as the average soldier found out, the ruling gentry had not gone to war to make liberty infectious or democracy possible. The egalitarian ideal proved useful in rallying support for independence among a wider public, but the simple fact was that colonial elites aimed principally to replace the British as America's lawgivers. They went to war for themselves." -- Madison and Jefferson, p. 213

And, of course, they elite did not get what they wanted, either. Once you unleash the forces of revolution, you have no idea what the outcome will ultimately be.