“All governments are more or less combinations against the people...and as rulers have no more virtue than the ruled...the power of government can only be kept within its constituted bounds by the display of a power equal to itself, the collected sentiment of the people.”

Such 'displays of power of the collected sentiment of the people' have been relegated to fenced in 'free speech zones.' I was reading about Benjamin Franklin Bache -- he died at 28, but he voiced his dissent loudly enough in his newspaper that he is credited for causing the Alien and Sedition Act which made it a crime to write against government policies. A black mark on the John Adams' administration.

"Public servants, persons chosen by the people to distribute the graft", Mark Twain. A perfect description of government.

I'm not quite sure how to rate this. The statement of the rulers vs. the ruled is spot on accurate. In the de jure republican form of rights protection, there are no rulers or ruled; there are only individual sovereigns with inalienable rights and the sovereign's representatives that order and manage the protection of such rights. A collected sentiment sounds like a democracy or some kind of oligarchy or demented socialist state.

Thank you for sharing that informative information, E Archer. I don't doubt that John Adams created the 'Alien and Sedition Act', because of Ben Franklin's grandson dissenting so loudly.
Sadly, John Adams had great disdain for Ben Franklin and therefore irrationally tossed his oath of office to the four winds.

not good. you do not tell the truth.

I think it means nothing

"Government, in it's final analysis, is organized force." - Woodrow Wilson.