"New Zealand was born free without having to become so"

 "Self-government and the rule of law came to New Zealand from above. These great principles were ordained by imperial authority. The result, to paraphrase de Tocqueville, was that New Zealand was born free without having to become so. It never had to fight for self-government, or win its rights by armed struggle."

~ Historian David Hackett Fischer, from his book Fairness and Freedom: A History of Two Open Societies: New Zealand and the United States