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… is from page 202 of Lord Acton’s late-1890s lecture “The Influence of America,” as this lecture appears in Essays in the History of Liberty: Selected Essays of Lord Acton, Vol. 1 [2] (J. Rufus Fears, ed., 1985; on-line access to this essay is available free of charge here [3]):
Who are a free people? Not those over whom government is reasonably and equitably exercised; but those who live under a government so constitutionally checked and controlled that proper provision is made against its being otherwise exercised.