"A man is accountable to no person for his doings"
About this Quote
“A man is accountable to no person for his doings” lands like a small grenade lobbed into an empire that ran on permission slips. James Otis, a colonial lawyer arguing against British writs of assistance, wasn’t praising moral free-range living; he was building a legal barricade around the private individual. In a world where the Crown could treat homes as searchable filing cabinets, “accountable to no person” is less swagger than firewall: the state does not get to demand an explanation simply because it has the power to ask.
The line’s genius is its absolutism. Otis speaks in the clean, blunt grammar of natural rights, where “man” is not a subject of the king but a self-possessing citizen in embryo. It’s also a lawyer’s move: by stripping away intermediaries (“no person”), he frames government agents as just that - persons - with no special moral standing to intrude. The subtext is a demotion of authority. Redcoats, customs officials, even Parliament become ordinary men in uniforms, not moral superiors entitled to rummage through your life.
Context matters: this is pre-Revolutionary rhetoric, when colonists were still arguing in the language of English liberty while edging toward something more radical. Otis isn’t rejecting law; he’s rejecting unaccountable power. The paradox is intentional: he insists on the individual’s non-accountability to arbitrary questioning so that government itself can be held accountable to constitutional limits. That tension - liberty as both shield and standard - is the line’s lasting voltage.
The line’s genius is its absolutism. Otis speaks in the clean, blunt grammar of natural rights, where “man” is not a subject of the king but a self-possessing citizen in embryo. It’s also a lawyer’s move: by stripping away intermediaries (“no person”), he frames government agents as just that - persons - with no special moral standing to intrude. The subtext is a demotion of authority. Redcoats, customs officials, even Parliament become ordinary men in uniforms, not moral superiors entitled to rummage through your life.
Context matters: this is pre-Revolutionary rhetoric, when colonists were still arguing in the language of English liberty while edging toward something more radical. Otis isn’t rejecting law; he’s rejecting unaccountable power. The paradox is intentional: he insists on the individual’s non-accountability to arbitrary questioning so that government itself can be held accountable to constitutional limits. That tension - liberty as both shield and standard - is the line’s lasting voltage.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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