"Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly and wickedness of the government may engage itself?

Under what concealment has this power lain hidden, which now for the first time comes forth, with a tremendous and baleful aspect, to trample down and destroy the dearest right of personal liberty?

Who will show me any Constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life, itself, whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it? ...

A free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscription is the most ridiculous and abominable contradiction and nonsense that ever entered into the heads of men." -- Daniel Webster (1782-1852), US Senator Source: Speech in the House of Representatives, January 14, 1814 http://liberty-tree.ca/qb/Daniel.Webster.Quote.D4ED

Y'know, one of the peculiarities I've noticed in reading foundational documents, including ones as late as this when the dust was still settling, is that one rarely sees the word democracy in those early documents. But it does seem, that 'democracy' is the word that has replaced the word 'liberty' in recent decades of public discussion.

Too, I would pose the question, given our state of lacking in public education, why is liberty better than freedom? Montag