The people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.

The line articulates a democratic theory of legitimacy: government exists to serve the public (“for the people”), derives its authority from popular consent (“by the people”), and remains accountable through constitutional checks, elections, and public judgment (“answerable to the people”). Its cadence and parallel structure make it memorable and rhetorically forceful, compressing a whole civic creed into a single sentence. The formulation is often discussed alongside later, more famous phrasing in American political oratory, reflecting a recurring nineteenth‑century effort to define the United States as a republic grounded in popular sovereignty rather than hereditary rule or elite privilege.