A distinction with a difference....

These quotes come from the 1765 Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law by John Adams.  It almost seems as if he is sounding a prescient warning for those who believe that the original intent of the U.S. Constitution, i.e. limited government, has value:

    "The way to secure Liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them a power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice...."

     "The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true.  They are the worst conceivable, they are not keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body."