“Their [schemes] strike at the root of all human happiness and virtue … [seeking] the overthrow of religion, government, and human society civil and domestic.” These conspirators, said Dwight, are so committed to their evil ends “that murder, butchery, and war, however extended and dreadful, are declared by them to be completely justifiable, if necessary for these great purposes.”
(Yale Professor Timothy Dwight, speaking of the techniques of the Bavarian Illuminati which was revealed in John Robson's book Proofs of a Conspiracy, which outlined the known history of the society through the government-siezed documents and the testimony of those who were prosecuted. 1798.)