LIBERTY REQUIRES ACCOUNTABILITY
Early Americans challenged the abuse of British power. They also warned that Americans could abuse power themselves.
Explore their words, examine the context, and follow the record.
Explore the quotationsA first collection, with room to grow.
Every passage includes a source and context.
ESSAYS & REFLECTIONS
Three short reading guides introduce the collection. This area can grow into a fuller set of TJA essays.
The founding debate did not end with opposition to a king. Otis condemned tyranny by one, a few, or many. Madison warned that elected legislatures could gather power into their own hands. Jefferson rejected “elective despotism.”
These passages ask us to examine what power does, how it is limited, and whether those limits can be enforced. An election does not answer every question about accountability.
The Declaration listed obstructed justice and lost jury protections among its grievances. Hamilton named arbitrary imprisonment and arbitrary punishment as instruments of tyranny and judicial despotism.
The writers disagreed about the remedy. Hamilton defended independent courts; Brutus and Jefferson feared unchecked judicial power. Reading their arguments together keeps both protection and accountability in view.
Mayhew asked whether obedience to government required submission to public oppressors. Witherspoon warned that even a good constitution could fail amid moral corruption. Adams emphasized the importance of moral and religious restraint.
Madison also warned against religious establishments serving political tyranny. The collection preserves both concerns: the moral responsibilities of rulers and the protection of individual conscience.
THE TEXAS CONSTITUTIONAL CONNECTION
Article II, Section 1 · Texas Constitution of 1876
Texas divides state government into legislative, executive, and judicial departments. Each has its own assigned powers. People in one department may not exercise powers belonging to another, except where the Constitution expressly permits it.
“shall be divided into three distinct departments”
Excerpt from Article II, Section 1
The exception matters: separation operates within the whole Constitution, including its expressly authorized interactions among departments.
Read the complete Texas provision ↗| Document | What it contributes |
|---|---|
| Declaration of Independence · 1776 ↗ | Grounds government in rights and consent; condemns abuses of power, including interference with legislatures and dependence of judges on the king. |
| U.S. Constitution · 1787 ↗ | Articles I, II, and III assign legislative, executive, and judicial powers to distinct federal institutions, with constitutional checks among them. |
| Texas Constitution · Article II | Explicitly divides state government into three departments and forbids exercising another department’s powers except as expressly permitted. |
The connection concerns limits on government power. The Declaration does not itself prescribe a three-department system; Texas Article II expresses the separation principle rather than restating every founding principle. Its text governs Texas state government.
THE QUOTATION ARCHIVE
Search by phrase, author, or subject. Open each context note before using a quotation.
53 passages
Any government is free to the people under it (whatever be the frame) where the laws rule, and the people are a party to those laws, and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, or confusion.
Preface to the Frame of Government of Pennsylvania
A documented Penn passage. He evaluates monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy by law and popular participation, rather than by the name of the form.
Common tyrants, and public oppressors, are not intitled to obedience from their subjects, by virtue of any thing here laid down by the inspired apostle.
A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers
Mayhew's interpretation of Romans 13; he argues against unconditional obedience to oppressive rulers. This is theological argument, not a universal statement of law.
But if magistrates are unrighteous; if they are respecters of persons; if they are partial in their administration of justice; then those who do well have as much reason to be afraid, as those that do evil: there can be no safety for the good, nor any peculiar ground of terror to the unruly and injurious.
A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers
In the same sermon, Mayhew reasons that partial justice defeats government's protective purpose. Related oppression passage; it does not use the word tyranny.
Tyranny of all kinds is to be abhor'd, whether it be in the hands of one, or of the few, or of the many.
The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved
Otis condemns tyranny in every form of government. In 1764 he still praised the British constitutional system; this is not yet a declaration of independence.
The same law of nature and of reason is equally obligatory on a democracy, an aristocracy, and a monarchy: Whenever the administrators, in any of those forms, deviate from truth, justice and equity, they verge towards tyranny, and are to be opposed; and if they prove incorrigible, they will be deposed by the people, if the people are not rendered too abject.
The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved
Otis immediately illustrates removal in a democracy through changing votes and administrators.
But if every prince since Nimrod had been a tyrant, it would not prove a right to tyranize. There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the law of nature, and the grant of God almighty; who has given to all men a natural right to be free, and they have it ordinarily in their power to make themselves so, if they please.
The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved
A natural-rights and religious argument against treating long-standing domination as rightful.
Some states have lost their liberty by particular accidents; but this calamity is generally owing to the decay of virtue. A people is travelling fast to destruction, when individuals consider their interests as distinct from those of the public.
Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Letter XII
Letter XII, during opposition to the Townshend policies. Related liberty passage, not an exact occurrence of tyranny.
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?
To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth
The preceding lines describe her childhood seizure from Africa and her parents' suffering. Her appeal links personal enslavement with a poem about colonial liberty; it should not be reduced solely to British taxation.
And there is a certain distance from the seat of government, where an attempt to rule will either produce tyranny and helpless subjection, or provoke resistance and effect a separation.
The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men
A Princeton sermon during the conflict with Britain, delivered before Witherspoon signed the Declaration.
A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue.
The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men
His warning about corruption of public morals. Here slavery is used for political subjection; label it accordingly.
Ye that oppose independance now, ye know not what ye do; ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny, by keeping vacant the seat of government.
Common Sense, Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs
Paine argues that failing to create an American government invites domination and opportunistic seizure of power.
For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.
Common Sense, Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs
Related rule-of-law passage. The preceding paragraph proposes a symbolic charter ceremony, refers to the word of God, and says America's king reigns above. It is Paine's proposal in 1776, not a provision enacted in the later Constitution.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Declaration of Independence, adopted text
An accusation adopted by Congress; principally drafted by Jefferson but properly attributed to the adopted Declaration or Continental Congress.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Declaration of Independence, adopted text
The preceding sentence counsels against changing long-established governments for light and transient causes. Preserve that qualification when explaining the passage.
A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Declaration of Independence, adopted text
The sentence follows the complaint that repeated petitions received repeated injury.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
Declaration of Independence, adopted text
One particular grievance offered in support of the Declaration's tyranny charge.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
Declaration of Independence, adopted text
A grievance against royal control of judges. It concerns judicial dependence, not a claim that judicial independence itself is tyranny.
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
Declaration of Independence, adopted text
Another grievance supporting the tyranny accusation. A historical complaint, not a statement that every possible proceeding requires a jury.
And this must impel you, were we again under your Government, to endeavour the breaking our Sprit by the severest Tyranny, and obstructing by every means in your Power our growing Strength and Prosperity
Letter to Lord Howe, excerpt reproduced by the National Archives
Franklin explains why return to British government is unacceptable. The National Archives reproduction reads 'Sprit'; preserved here rather than silently correcting the transcription.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
The American Crisis, No. I
Opening paragraph of Crisis I, written during the Revolutionary War.
Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in all cases whatsoever,” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth.
The American Crisis, No. I
Paine attacks unlimited parliamentary authority. The words about binding are his quotation of Britain's asserted legislative power.
Even the expression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to GOD.
The American Crisis, No. I
This sentence refers to the immediately preceding British claim in entry 21. It should not circulate without that antecedent.
Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could.
Letter to John Adams
Part of 'Remember the Ladies.' This concerns married women's legal position in the new American order, rather than only royal tyranny.
Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity.
Letter to John Adams
An adjacent appeal for protection of women. A related oppression passage; her capitalization and spelling are preserved.
The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants.
Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments
Section 2. The encroachment is on the barrier protecting people's rights, in an argument against Virginia's proposed religious assessment. Do not omit that context.
In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people.
Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments
Section 8. 'They' means ecclesiastical establishments. Madison critiques state establishment, not private religious belief or all religious participation in public life.
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
The Federalist, No. 47
Madison defends the proposed Constitution against this charge. Later passages explain that checks and partial blending of powers need not violate the principle.
They seem never to have recollected the danger from legislative usurpations, which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations.
The Federalist, No. 48
'They' refers to founders of state republics. Madison warns that elected legislatures can threaten liberty, too.
An ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIII, as quoted in Federalist No. 48
Jefferson's criticism of Virginia's arrangements, explicitly quoted by Madison. Capitalization and wording here follow Federalist No. 48, not a claimed transcription of Jefferson's first edition.
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
The Federalist, No. 51
A central constitutional response to abuse; related restraint passage without the word tyranny.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.
The Federalist, No. 51
Madison argues that dependence on virtuous officeholders alone is insufficient; institutional controls are also necessary.
In a monarchy it is an excellent barrier to the despotism of the prince; in a republic it is a no less excellent barrier to the encroachments and oppressions of the representative body.
The Federalist, No. 78
'It' means judicial tenure during good behavior. Hamilton presents independence as protection against oppression.
It equally proves, that though individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter; I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive.
The Federalist, No. 78
Include the full qualification. Hamilton acknowledges possible individual oppression while defending the judiciary's structural independence.
The creation of crimes after the commission of the fact, or, in other words, the subjecting of men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law, and the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.
The Federalist, No. 84
Hamilton's own sentence. The next paragraph quotes Blackstone; do not attribute Blackstone's words to Hamilton.
I am not well versed in history, but I will submit to your recollection, whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people, or by the tyranny of rulers. I imagine, sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny.
Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, recorded debate
A recorded ratification speech opposing the Constitution as then proposed. This is Henry's historical judgment, not an independently demonstrated statistical conclusion.
A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny; and how are you to punish them?
Virginia Ratifying Convention, Elliot's Debates 3:51–52
Henry's warning about the proposed national government's military power. A prediction and objection in debate, not a finding about a later administration.
Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty!
Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, recorded debate
Henry challenges reliance on the personal virtue of American rulers. Recorded in convention debates, not a surviving audio or verbatim stenographic transcript.
Despotism usually while it is gaining ground, will suffer men to think, say, or write what they please; but when once established, if it is thought necessary to subserve the purposes, of arbitrary power, the most unjust restrictions may take place in the first instance, and an imprimatur on the Press in the next, may silence the complaints, and forbid the most decent remonstrances of an injured and oppressed people.
Observations on the New Constitution, published as A Columbian Patriot
Objection 2. Warren argues for protections of conscience and press. This was before the federal Bill of Rights.
a Constitution, which, by the undefined meaning of some parts, and the ambiguities of expression in others, is dangerously adapted to the purposes of an immediate aristocratic tyranny; that from the difficulty, if not impracticability of its operation, must soon terminate in the most uncontrouled despotism.
Observations on the New Constitution
A continuous excerpt from a longer sentence. Warren's Anti-Federalist prediction; not a settled description shared by all founders.
The plan of the federal city, sir, departs from every principle of freedom, as far as the distance of the two polar stars from each other; for, subjecting the inhabitants of that district to the exclusive legislation of Congress, in whose appointment they have no share or vote, is laying a foundation on which may be erected as complete a tyranny as can be found in the Eastern world.
New York Ratifying Convention, Elliot's Debates 2:402
A ratification-era objection to the federal district's representation and congressional control.
The judicial power will operate to effect, in the most certain, but yet silent and imperceptible manner, what is evidently the tendency of the constitution:—I mean, an entire subversion of the legislative, executive and judicial powers of the individual states.
Brutus XI
A related usurpation warning. Attribute securely to the pseudonym Brutus; the individual author is commonly identified as Yates but is not certain.
There is no power above them that can correct their errors or controul their decisions- The adjudications of this court are final and irreversible, for there is no court above them to which appeals can lie, either in error or on the merits.
Brutus XV
Brutus discusses the proposed Supreme Court. Do not misapply this to every lower court, or read it as denying all constitutional mechanisms of accountability.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.
Farewell Address
A warning about American party conflict and the route to authoritarian rule. Address issued by Washington with substantial drafting assistance from Hamilton.
The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.
Farewell Address
Separation-of-powers warning. Date is publication September 19; the Mount Vernon transcription's closing date is September 17.
But let there be no change by usurpation; for, though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.
Farewell Address
Washington directs that changes in constitutional distribution of powers be made through the prescribed amendment process.
Let him say what the government is, if it be not a tyranny, which the men of our choice have conferred on our President, and the President of our choice has assented to, and accepted over the friendly strangers to whom the mild spirit of our country and its laws have pledged hospitality and protection
Draft resolutions relative to the Alien and Sedition Acts
Jefferson's draft language against the Alien and Sedition Acts. The cited edition reproduces draft resolutions; do not label every part of this text as the final Kentucky enactment. The excerpt ends before the sentence's colon.
for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
Letter to Benjamin Rush, authenticated extract
An authenticated extract. The letter's context concerns religion, clergy, and the 1800 election; the words alone do not settle any particular modern church-state question.
You seem, in pages 84 and 148, to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so.
Letter to William Charles Jarvis, printed in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. VII, pp. 178–179
Jefferson's position on ultimate constitutional interpretation among coequal departments. It is his argument, not a statement of current judicial-review doctrine.
Sir, suffer me to recal to your mind that time, in which the arms and tyranny of the British crown were exerted, with every powerful effort, in order to reduce you to a state of servitude
Letter to Thomas Jefferson
A continuous excerpt ending before the original colon. Banneker appeals to Jefferson's Revolutionary experience as the basis for an anti-slavery challenge.
I am not under that state of tyrannical thraldom, and inhuman captivity, to which too many of my brethren are doomed
Letter to Thomas Jefferson
A continuous excerpt within the longer sentence. Banneker, a free Black American, contrasts his liberty with the enslavement of others on American soil.
Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion.
Letter to officers of the Massachusetts militia
Related moral-restraint passage. Adams goes on to name avarice, ambition, revenge, and 'Galantry' as threats to constitutional safeguards. This alone does not specify a required denomination.
Arbitrary impeachments, arbitrary methods of prosecuting pretended offenses, and arbitrary punishments upon arbitrary convictions, have ever appeared to me to be the great engines of judicial despotism; and these have all relation to criminal proceedings.
The Federalist, No. 83
Hamilton argues for criminal juries and habeas corpus, while distinguishing civil proceedings. Do not quote this as his endorsement of an unrestricted jury right in every civil or equity matter.
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
Proposed Great Seal motto, 1776; Jefferson’s personal seal
Franklin proposed this motto in 1776 with a Great Seal design depicting Moses, the Red Sea, and Pharaoh’s defeat. John Adams described the proposal in his August 14, 1776 letter to Abigail. The final Great Seal did not adopt it. Jefferson later used the motto on his personal seal; Monticello identifies an intact impression on his April 4, 1790 letter to Richard Gem. The documented wording is “Rebellion,” rather than “Resistance.” Franklin’s use and Jefferson’s adoption are verified; original authorship is less certain because the words also circulated in a supposed Bradshaw epitaph.
John Adams’s account of Franklin’s proposal ↗
Jefferson’s manuscript and the motto’s earlier history ↗
Try a shorter phrase or clear the filters.
EVIDENCE BEFORE ATTRIBUTION
The quoted words were located in a historical document or a reliable reproduction. That verifies the quotation; it does not establish that every accusation, historical judgment, or prediction in it was true.
This collection includes direct references to tyranny and despotism, alongside related passages about oppression, justice, conscience, and constitutional restraint. It is a substantial starting point, rather than an exhaustive catalogue.
Download the complete reference collection ↓The Declaration is attributed to its adopted congressional text. Brutus remains a pseudonymous attribution. Convention speeches come through recorded debates. Historical spelling and wording follow the cited editions; typography may be standardized.
The saying about people being “governed by God” or “ruled by tyrants” has not been located in Penn’s writings. The date 1668 is unsupported. This archive uses a documented Penn passage instead.
Read the verified Penn passage →Federalist No. 84 quotes the English jurist William Blackstone immediately after Hamilton’s statement about arbitrary imprisonment. Blackstone’s passage should be attributed to him, rather than presented as Hamilton’s own words.
Read Hamilton’s passage →The collection preserves disagreement among the writers. Applying their arguments to a current dispute requires evidence of the conduct at issue and the relevant legal rules.