Fear: The Engine of Power
“Fear is the foundation of most governments.”
John Adams was right – except for one word.
Not “most.” From ancient empires to modern regimes, the story never changes. Government power always expands fastest through fear. Fear is the tool, the trigger, the weapon. It’s the permanent excuse for crushing liberty.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF TYRANNY
The warnings didn’t start in 1776. Long before the American Revolution and the War for Independence, fear had already been exposed as the lifeblood of tyranny.
Montesquieu went straight to the foundation. A republic needs virtue. A monarchy needs honor. But despotism – only fear.
“As virtue is necessary in a republic, and, in a monarchy, honour, so fear is necessary in a despotic government: with regard to virtue, there is no occasion for it, and honour would be extremely dangerous.”
And he didn’t stop there. He explained why fear is essential – it breaks people down so thoroughly that ambition dies before it can even begin.
“Persons, capable of setting a value upon themselves, would be likely to create disturbances. Fear must, therefore, depress their spirits, and extinguish even the least sense of ambition.”
That’s how the system is built. Machiavelli warned what happens next – when fear takes hold, the powerful write the rules for themselves, and everyone else is too scared to resist.
“But when the citizens had become corrupt, this system became the worst possible, for then only the powerful proposed laws, not for the common good and the liberty of all, but for the increase of their own power, and fear restrained all the others from speaking against such laws; and thus the people were by force and fraud made to resolve upon their own ruin.”
HOW FEAR CORRUPTS A NATION
The real poison of government by fear goes much deeper than politics.
Writing in Cato’s Letters, Thomas Gordon saw how it warps the soul of a people – turning courage into cowardice and silence. He learned this lesson straight from the Roman historian Tacitus.
“The minds of men, terrified by unjust power, degenerated into all the vileness and methods of servitude: Abject sycophancy and blind submission grew the only means of preferment, and indeed of safety; men durst not open their mouths, but to flatter.”
As Algernon Sidney pointed out, when people are crushed by fear, their silence isn’t necessarily agreement or consent. Sometimes, it’s survival.
“And those who are under such governments do no more assent to them, tho they may be silent, than a man approves of being robbed, when, without saying a word, he delivers his purse to a thief that he knows to be too strong for him.”
But not everyone goes quietly into the night. There are always some who continue to speak out – and the fewer they are, the easier it is for government to crush them.
Thomas Gordon saw exactly how this plays out.
“All ministers, therefore, who were oppressors, or intended to be oppressors, have been loud in their complaints against freedom of speech, and the licence of the press; and always restrained, or endeavoured to restrain, both.”
That suppression isn’t about order – it’s about fear. The louder the truth, the more violent the reaction.
“In consequence of this, they have brow-beaten writers, punished them violently, and against law, and burnt their works. By all which they shewed how much truth alarmed them, and how much they were at enmity with truth.”
THE OLDEST EXCUSE
Fear is the oldest excuse in the tyrant’s playbook – and every power grab comes dressed as protection. At the Philadelphia Convention, James Madison exposed the tactic.
“The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”
This wasn’t just theory. The founders had studied what happened when governments ruled by fear. Madison had seen the pattern before – in ancient Rome, and across Europe.
“Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.”
But the script is even older. Plato saw that tyranny doesn’t begin with domination – it begins with dependence.
“The people have some protector whom they nurse into greatness, and from this root the tree of tyranny springs.”
And once the tyrant has power, he can’t afford to let up. Aristotle explained the next move.
“The tyrant is also fond of making war in order that his subjects may have something to do and be always in want of a leader.”
THE COVER STORY
Tyrants almost never admit they’re crushing liberty. They don’t start with violence – they start with a story. Some emergency. Some threat. Some crisis that makes it all sound reasonable.
“In how many instances do we see, that things which begin plausibly, end tragically? People have been often enslaved by princes created by themselves for their protection, often butchered by armies raised by themselves for their defence.”
Every act of oppression comes disguised as protection. Gordon gave a brutal example – Louis XIV, who slaughtered his own people while claiming it was for their good.
“The late French King, whenever he was going to shed the blood of his people in any wanton war, though undertaken to gratify his lust of power, or to exalt his own house, never failed to let them know, in an edict made on purpose, that it was all for their good and prosperity; that is, they were to suffer slaughter abroad, oppression and famine at home, purely for their own advantage and felicity.”
At the height of the American Revolution, John Dickinson exposed the psychological warfare used to wear people down and train submission.
“Our fears will be excited. Our homes will be awakened. It will be insinuated to us, with a plausible affectation of wisdom and concern, how prudent it is to please the powerful – how dangerous to provoke them.”
With that comes the rule – submit first, then beg.
“And then comes in the perpetual incantation that freezes up every generous purpose of the soul in cold, inactive expectation – ‘that if there is any request to be made, compliance will obtain a favorable attention.’”
Sometimes real danger isn’t enough – so those in power create it. Benjamin Jowett, in his introduction to Book V of Aristotle’s Politics, described it this way.
“The cautious ruler will seek to create salutary terrors in the minds of the people: he will also endeavour to restrain the quarrels of the notables. He will need the gift of foresight if he aspires to the character of a statesman.”
THE UNIVERSAL TRUTH
All the propaganda. All the panic. All the promises of “protection” – the end is always the same.
In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, James Madison dropped one of the coldest truths in American history.
“Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger real or pretended from abroad.”
Fear is the foundation of government power. Always has been.
And when people live in fear, limits on government power don’t stand a chance. Rights are trampled. Constitutions are erased.
They call it protection. They call it security. But it’s always the same playbook – fear first, power second.
When government says “it’s for your safety,” it means only one thing – control.
Michael Boldin
Michael Boldin [send him email] is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. He was raised in Milwaukee, WI, and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on twitter – @michaelboldin and Facebook.