本杰明·富蘭克林:
All governments are more or less combinations against people… and as rulers have no more virtue than the ruled… the power of government can only be kept within its constituted bounds by the display of a power equal to itself, the collected sentiment of the people.

— Benjamin Franklin Bache, in a Philadelphia Aurora editorial, 1794

“所有的政府，或多或少，總是反人民的組合......而作為統(tǒng)治者，他們并不比被統(tǒng)治者具備更多的美德......要將政府的權(quán)力限制在憲法規(guī)定的范圍內(nèi)，只有一個(gè)辦法，靠另一股和政府同樣強(qiáng)大的力量 —— 也就是全體民意的集合。”