Quote

A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases.

— Lysander Spooner

Sentiment: POSITIVE

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✓Similar Perspectives

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.

— Oliver Ellsworth

Let not ambition take possession of you; love the friends of the people, but reserve blind submission for the law and enthusiasm for liberty.

— Marquis de Lafayette

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.

— Plato

I say, traitors; as some men live upon the reward of treachery, for their quiet and liberty; if it may be called a liberty, as it is redeemed with the betraying of the interest of Christ, and the blood of His people.

— Donald Cargill

A government of, by and for the people is obligated to conduct the nation's business in a manner that respects dissent.

— Jim Leach

It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men's property, which they had not before, as individuals.

— Lysander Spooner

Those who consent to the act and those who do it shall be equally punished.

— Edward Coke

✗Opposing Perspectives

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

— Thomas Jefferson

A government of laws, and not of men.

— John Adams

Governments that block the aspirations of their people, that steal or are corrupt, that oppress and torture or that deny freedom of expression and human rights should bear in mind that they will find it increasingly hard to escape the judgement of their own people, or where warranted, the reach of international law.

— William Hague