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Sinking gradually

"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, -- who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia." --George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788