The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.
I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.
War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.
And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.
Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'imagick.so' (tried: /usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20200930/imagick.so (/usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20200930/imagick.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory), /usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20200930/imagick.so.so (/usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20200930/imagick.so.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)) in Unknown on line 0