Here, also, has been evolved the form of government consistent with the largest possible civil liberty.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.
You can not possibly have a broader basis for government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.
The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing.
Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.
Each generation must recreate liberty for its own times.
Government itself is founded upon the great doctrine of the consent of the governed, and has its cornerstone in the memorable principle that men are endowed with inalienable rights.
The fact is, almost every year since the founding of these United States, our government has lived beyond its means.
The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.
It appears first, that liberty is a natural, and government an adventitious right, because all men were originally free.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.