Who said "A watchful spirit of jealousy is the best protection of democracy?"

Hello.

The quotation appears to be a slight variation on words credited to
John Adams, the second President of the United States.

In "The Founders' Almanac: Atlas of American Independence," C. Bradley
Thompson quotes John Adams as saying that the spirit of liberty "is
and ought to be a jealous, a watchful spirit."

"The Founders' Almanac" is published by the Heritage Foundation and
the chapter on Adams is available for download from Heritage.org (in
PDF format, so you'll need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it):
http://www.heritage.org/almanac/pdf/adams.pdf

Alternatively, the chapter may be viewed without the Acrobat Reader by
using this HTML translation courtesy of Google:
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:FzSKgsoSJIIC:www.heritage.org/almanac/pdf/adams.pdf+jealous+%22watchful+spirit%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet

For the exact context and source of the quotation, C. Bradley
Thompson's "John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty" would be the most
obvious place to start. Since Mr. Thompson included the quotation in
his brief article in "The Founder's Almanac," he probably also has
included it (along with a citation) in his book on Adams. The book is
widely available at libraries and bookstores. For more information,
visit Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0700611819/002-9865455-2848045

search strategy: "watchful spirit," jealousy, jealous

I hope this helps. Good luck with your research.

This Adams quote reminds me of an excerpt from "The Patriot," by
Samuel Johnson:

"It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to
observe all secret machinations, and to see publick [sic] dangers at a
distance."

http://www.samueljohnson.com/thepatriot.html

And this, from Patrick Henry's opening speech to the Virginia
Ratifying Convention:

"You ought to be extremely cautious, watchful, jealous of your
liberty; for instead of securing your rights you may lose them
forever."

It is apparent that, even in the eighteenth century, great minds
thought alike.