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.
What matters is that the majority of American people have become complacent in a senseless injustice that occurs all around them. What matters is that most American politicians have become more easily swayed by money than by the people who voted them into office.
If they think they have issues with the president not doing enough for the poor now, wait and see what happens if the opposition takes office. Then they would really need a poverty tour.
The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.
It's too much show business and too much prompting, too much artificiality, and not really debates. They're rehearsed appearances.
Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured. But what particular degree of frequency may be absolutely necessary for the purpose, does not appear to be susceptible of any precise calculation; and must depend on a variety of circumstances with which it may be connected. Let us consult experience, the guide that ought always to be followed, whenever it can be found.
A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them.
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