The corpse of John Adams probably has a smirk.
> government ... people ... as an adversary.
Adams had some interesting views, ones the courts dont share but he did. In his thought, the final check on power was the jury. It did not matter what the LAW said, it matters what the jury thought, that a jury at any point could just choose to nullify a law.
In many places talking about this near courts will get you held in contempt. But at lest one of the founding fathers though "telling the government to stuff it" was the right thing to do.