When you give the government an inch, they take a mile.

The words of Matt Salmon — “When you give the government an inch, they take a mile.” — thunder like a warning bell from the watchtowers of liberty. In them lies a truth as old as governance itself: that power is a hungry creature, and once fed, it seldom stops eating. These words do not speak merely of modern politics, but of the eternal tension between rulers and the ruled — between the people’s freedom and the state’s desire for control. Every generation must confront this truth anew: when the people grow complacent, the guardians become masters; when liberty yields a single inch, authority advances a mile.

Salmon’s words emerge from the long tradition of American distrust of unchecked power, a tradition rooted in the Revolution itself. As a congressman and servant of the republic, he echoed the same vigilance that burned in the hearts of the Founding Fathers. His warning was not born of cynicism, but of hard experience — for he had seen how laws crafted “for protection” often became instruments of overreach. The history of nations is a graveyard of freedoms lost not in sudden wars, but in slow concessions — each small surrender justified by necessity, each inch quietly becoming a mile.

The ancients, too, understood this peril. The Roman Republic, once the beacon of liberty, fell not by invasion from without, but by gradual submission from within. The people granted their leaders extraordinary powers “for emergencies,” trusting that those powers would be surrendered when peace returned. But the emergencies never ended. One by one, liberties were traded for promises of safety, until the people awoke under the shadow of emperors. What began as the cautious granting of inches ended as a thousand miles of tyranny.

So too in modern times, we see this cycle repeat. In moments of fear — in war, in crisis, in chaos — governments expand their reach, claiming it is only for the moment. Yet those moments linger. Powers granted in panic rarely fade in peace. After the attacks of September 11, for instance, new laws were written to strengthen security. But many of those same laws have endured long after the danger passed, allowing surveillance and control that the founders of liberty would scarcely have believed. The lesson is clear: once freedom yields ground, it is a long and perilous march to reclaim it.

But Salmon’s warning is not one of despair; it is a call to vigilance and courage. He reminds us that freedom cannot survive on the goodwill of rulers alone. It must be guarded by citizens — alert, skeptical, and unafraid to say “no” when government asks for too much. For authority always cloaks its demands in noble words — “safety,” “security,” “justice.” Yet beneath these cloaks lies the old hunger for dominion. It is not enough to trust that power will restrain itself. Power must be restrained by the will of the people.

Consider the example of Patrick Henry, who stood before the Virginia Convention and cried, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty!” He knew that freedom dies not in thunderclaps, but in whispers — not by sudden conquest, but by the slow erosion of rights unnoticed by the weary and the indifferent. His words, like Salmon’s, are a reminder that freedom demands vigilance, not comfort. The citizen who would live free must watch his government as the shepherd watches the wolf — with wary eyes and unwavering resolve.

Thus, the wisdom handed down through the ages is this: never surrender your freedom in small pieces, for each piece is a stone in the road that leads to servitude. Speak, question, resist — not with violence, but with courage and reason. Support laws that protect, but never those that encroach. Demand transparency, for darkness is the ally of tyranny. And when those in power promise safety in exchange for liberty, remember that safety without freedom is merely the silence of the cage.

So let this teaching be passed to all who value their birthright: freedom once lost is not easily reclaimed. Guard it fiercely. Question those who would take even an inch of it. For when the government takes that inch, it will not stop until it has taken a mile — and the miles, once gone, stretch into an endless horizon from which no nation easily returns. Be vigilant, O free people, for vigilance is the eternal price of liberty, and its reward is the unbroken light of self-rule.