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If it be said that the consent of the strongest party in a nation, is all that is necessary to justify the establishment of a government that shall have authority over the weaker party, it may be answered that the most despotic governments in the world rest upon that very principle, viz.: the consent of the strongest party.

The strongest and most effective force in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of power is not violence in all the forms deployed by the dominant to control the dominated, but consent in all the forms in which the dominated acquiesce in their own domination.

I can never consent to being dictated to.

One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.

Governments don't control people like they used to.

Our nation is built on the bedrock principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

A law is not a law without coercion behind it.

No power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent.

One must always keep one's government under control.