Here is a quote by Samuel Adams on tyrants reducing people to ignorance and vice, to keep them from prevailing against government.
Samuel Adams, Boston Gazette, October 5, 1772:
“It is in the Interest of Tyrants to reduce the People to Ignorance and Vice. For they cannot live in any Country where Virtue and Knowledge prevail. The Religion and public Liberty of a People are intimately connected; their Interests are interwoven, they cannot subsist separately; and therefore they rise and fall together. For this Reason it is always observable, that those who are combined to destroy the People’s Liberties, practice every Art to poison their Morals.”