kick over the traces

That made voters kick over the traces again.

“That was really quite courageous . . . to be a trustee and a whistleblower at the same time. His eye was really sharp to the way things should go, and if they weren’t going right, he’d kick over the traces.”

But the indispensable man doesn't exist, my good Jules, and the moment you kick over the traces, out you go!

“By Myself” had a similar air of sassy defiance, as though the ever-demure and elegant Ms. Carroll had decided at long last to kick over the traces: gently, I should add, with a delicate tap of a toe.

Carleigh might kick over the traces of betrothal and marriage, incited by an unconventional matron from the States, but he couldn't think of defying the convention which forbids gentlemen to leave the dinner-table until the ladies have had a quarter of an hour, at the very least, to themselves in which to exchange confidences.