Honest opinion about government from John C. Calhoun:
The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.
speech, Feb. 17, 1835Government has no right to control individual liberty beyond what is necessary to the safety and well-being of society. Such is the boundary which separates the power of the government and the liberty of the citizen or subject in the political state.
speech, Senate, June 27, 1848
A champion of states' rights, John C. Calhoun was an American lawyer, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1811-1817), Secretary of War (1817-1825), Vice-President under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson (1825-1832), Senator (1832-1843, 1845-1850), and Secretary of State (1844-1845). Calhoun's views on human nature and the abuses of political power and his theory of the "concurrent majority" are important to American Conservatism.
Quotation and short bio from The Quotable Conservative: The Giants of Conservatism on Liberty, Freedom, Individual Responsibility, and Traditional Values. Rod L. Evans and Irwin M. Berent, editors. Holbrook, Mass.: Adams Publishing, 1996.