Inevitably, those who rule are hostile to the idea of individual liberty. From Philip Giraldi at unz.com:
The Framers of the United States Constitution understood several things very clearly from their experience as a colonial vassal state with only limited legislative or self-governing authority under the rule of Britain’s King George III. That principle lesson learned, justifying a revolution, was that the leader or ruler of a nation must not be allowed to unilaterally initiate armed conflicts because war is the greatest calamity that can afflict a nation and its people. That was why the US president under the balance of powers had no ability under the Constitution to initiate a war on his or her own authority. It required an act of war approved by Congress with the legislature also providing the funding and most of the manpower through voluntary levies from the state militias as the national army was deliberately small.
And why might a revolution be needed apart from negating the propensity of kings to go to war? A constitutional government in this case was devised as a mechanism to protect fundamental rights and liberties, which at least some of the Founders considered to be inalienable and granted by the Creator to all human beings. The most important of those rights was freedom of speech, which rightly was featured as the First Amendment to the Constitution leading off the ten liberties that comprised the Bill of Rights. That American citizens should have the right to speak their minds was considered essential to their concept of freedom, particularly when it encompassed the right to protest at what the government was doing.
