The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
A government capable of controlling the whole, and bringing its force to a point, is one of the prerequisites for national liberty. We combine in society, with an expectation to have our persons and properties defended against unreasonable exactions either at home or abroad.
Liberty is the prevention of control by others.
It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives.
Liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is liberty to that which is good, just, and honest.
Under the rule of a repressive whole, liberty can be made into a powerful instrument of domination.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Liberty and security are often in direct confrontation and must be balanced in a way that protects us without destroying what is worth protecting.
Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.
I, for one, will remain constantly vigilant of a government that admits its transgressions of liberty only when they are caught lying.
Liberty is ceding a certain amount of your ability to do what you want so that everybody else can live in peace and freedom and respecting the rights of other people.