Without authority there is no liberty. Freedom is doomed to destruction at every turn, unless there is a recognized right to freedom. And if there are rights, there is an authority to which we appeal for them.
Unbounded hopes were placed on each successive extension of the electoral franchise, culminating in the enfranchisement of women.These hopes have been disappointed, because the voters, male and female, being politically untrained and uneducated, have (a) no grasp of constructive measures; (b) loathe taxation as such; (c) dislike being governed at all; and (d) dread and resent any extension of official interference as an encroachment on their personal liberty.
Many free countries have lost their liberty, and ours may lose hers; but, if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I never deserted her.
Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's own need to think.
Liberty begets anarchy, anarchy leads to despotism, and despotism brings about liberty once again. Millions of human beings have perished without being able to make any of these systems triumph.