For in a Republic, who is ‘the country?’ Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant — merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
– Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910)

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A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
– Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) Political theorist, activist, abolitionist
Source: The Constitution of No Authority (Boston: 1870), p. 28.