One essential of a free government is that it rest wholly on voluntary support. And one certain proof that a government is not free, is that it coerces more or less persons to support it, against their will.

A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases.

All governments, the worst on earth, and the most tyrannical on earth, are free governments to that portion of the people who voluntarily support them.

Lysander Spooner Quotes