Replies

Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind.

James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 179

“Everyone, by his property or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men may safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs and a degree of freedom which, in the hands of the canaille of the cities of Europe, would be instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of everything public and private.”

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:401

It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government.

Mercy Warren, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, 1805

“Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”

Frederic Bastiat

And my personal favorite:

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence. It is force, and like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

George Washington