A people cannot long retain their freedom, whose government is incapable of protecting them.
Interpretation
A society's freedom is threatened if its government cannot ensure their safety.
Oliver Ellsworth's quote emphasizes the critical relationship between a government's ability to protect its citizens and the preservation of freedom. It suggests that a government failure in its duty to safeguard the populace leads to the erosion of liberty, highlighting the responsibility of governance in maintaining a secure and free society.
In practice
During a political rally discussing civil rights and government accountability.
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.
Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some it means anything, which enervate a necessary government; excite a jealousy of the rulers who are our own choice, and keep society in confusion for want of a power sufficiently concentered to promote good.
Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world.
Even the most cynical can hardly be surprised by the antics of Nixon and his accomplices as they are gradually revealed. It matters little, at this point, where the exact truth lies in the maze of perjury, evasion, and of contempt for the normal - hardly inspiring - standards of political conduct.
I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it - not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.
Populism has had as many incarnations as it has had provocations, but its constant ingredient has been resentment, and hence whininess. Populism does not wax in tranquil times; it is a cathartic response to serious problems. But it always wanes because it never seems serious as a solution.
The work of the political activist inevitably involves a certain tension between the requirement that position be taken on current issues as they arise and the desire that one's contributions will somehow survive the ravages of time.
The Convention probably foresaw what it has been a principal aim of these papers to inculcate that the danger which most threatens our political welfare is, that the state governments will finally sap the foundations of the Union.
The atrocities in Cambodia are a direct and understandable response to the violence of the imperial system.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.