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Duties of Citizens
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What duty does a citizen owe to
the government that secures the society in which he lives? What can it expect and rightly
demand of him in support of itself? A nation that rests on the will of the people must
also depend on individuals to support its institutions in whatever ways are appropriate if
it is to flourish. Persons qualified for public office should feel some obligation to make
that contribution. If not, public service will be left to those of lesser qualification,
and the government may more easily become corrupted.
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"No government can be
maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty. Good men will obey the last, but
bad ones the former only. If our government ever fails, it will be from this
weakness." --Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1814.
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"Every man is under the
natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws
should enforce on him." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Gilmer, 1816. ME 15:24
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"A good citizen should take
his stand where the public authority marshals him." --Thomas Jefferson to Mme
D'Auville, 1790. ME 8:16
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"That a man owes no duty to
which he is not urged by some impulsive feeling... is correct, if referred to the standard
of general feeling in the given case, and not to the feeling of a single individual."
--Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Law, 1814. ME 14:144
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"Private charities as well
as contributions to public purposes in proportion to everyone's circumstances are
certainly among the duties we owe to society." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles
Christian, 1812. ME 13:134
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"I shall see with sincere
satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural
rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."
--Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802. ME 16:282
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"There is a debt of service
due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune
have measured to him." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1796. ME 9:354
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"No interests are dearer to
men than those which ought to be secured to them by their form of government, and none
deserve better of them than those who contribute to the amelioration of that form."
--Thomas Jefferson to M. Ruelle, 1809.
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"I never thought of
questioning the free exercise of the right of my fellow citizens to marshal those whom
they call into their service according to their fitness, nor ever presumed that they were
not the best judges of that." --Thomas Jefferson to James Sullivan, 1797. ME 9:376
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"Some men are born for the
public. Nature by fitting them for the service of the human race on a broad scale, has
stamped them with the evidences of her destination and their duty." --Thomas
Jefferson to James Monroe, 1803. ME 10:345
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"There is sometimes an
eminence of character on which society have such peculiar claims as to control the
predilections of the individual for a particular walk of happiness, and restrain him to
that alone arising from the present and future benedictions of mankind." --Thomas
Jefferson to George Washington, 1792. ME 8:348
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"[I have] an ardent zeal to
see this government (the idol of my soul) continue in good hands." --Thomas Jefferson
to William Wirt, 1808. ME 11:424
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"That my country should be
served is the first wish of my heart: I should be doubly happy were I to render it a
service." --Thomas Jefferson to the Officials of Norfolk, 1789. Papers 15:556
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"Though I... am myself duly
impressed with a sense of the arduousness of government and the obligation those are under
who are able to conduct it, yet I am also satisfied there is an order of geniuses above
that obligation and therefore exempted from it. Nobody can conceive that nature ever
intended to throw away a Newton upon the occupations of a crown. It would have been a
prodigality for which even the conduct of Providence might have been arraigned, had he
been by birth annexed to what was so far below him. Cooperating with nature in her
ordinary economy, we should dispose of and employ the geniuses of men according to their
several orders and degrees." --Thomas Jefferson to David Rittenhouse, 1778. Papers
2:202
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"I do not mean... to testify
a disposition to render no service but what is rigorously within my duty. I am the
farthest in the world from this; it is a question I shall never ask myself; nothing making
me more happy than to render any service in my power, of whatever description. But I wish
only to be excused from intermeddling in business in which I have no skill, and should do
more harm than good." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Osgood, 1785. ME 5:163, Papers
8:590
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"I profess... so much of the
Roman principle as to deem it honorable for the general of yesterday to act as a corporal
today if his services can be useful to his country, holding that to be false pride which
postpones the public good to any private or personal considerations." --Thomas
Jefferson to William Duane, 1812. ME 13:186
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"It will remain... to those
now coming on the stage of public affairs to perfect what has been so well begun by those
going off it." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., 1787. ME 6:165
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"The first of all our
consolations is that of having faithfully fulfilled our duties; the next, the approbation
and good will of those who have witnessed it." --Thomas Jefferson to James Fishback,
1809. ME 12:316
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Demands of Public Service |
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"In a virtuous government...
public offices are what they should be: burthens to those appointed to them, which it
would be wrong to decline, though foreseen to bring with them intense labor and great
private loss." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, 1779. Papers 2:298
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"I acknowledge that such a
debt [of service to my fellow-citizens] exists, that a tour of duty in whatever line he
can be most useful to his country, is due from every individual. It is not easy perhaps to
say of what length exactly that tour should be, but we may safely say of what length it
should not be. Not of our whole life, for instance, for that would be to be born a
slave--not even of a very large portion of it." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison,
1793. ME 9:118
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"Whether the state may
command the political service of all its members to an indefinite extent, or if these be
among the rights never wholly ceded to the public power, is a question which I do not find
expressly decided in England... Nothing could so completely divest us of that liberty
[which the bill of rights has made inviolable, and for the preservation of which our
government has been charged] as the establishment of the opinion that the state has a perpetual
right to the services of all its members. This to men of certain ways of thinking would be
to annihilate the blessing of existence and to contradict the Giver of life, who gave it
for happiness and not for wretchedness; and certainly, to such it were better that they
had never been born." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1782. ME 4:196, Papers
6:185
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Advantages of Public Service |
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"I will not say that public
life is the line for making a fortune. But it furnishes a decent and honorable support,
and places one's children on good grounds for public favor. The family of a beloved father
will stand with the public on the most favorable ground of competition. Had General
Washington left children, what would have been denied them?" --Thomas Jefferson to
William Wirt, 1808. ME 11:424
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"There are minds which can
be pleased by honors and preferments; but I see nothing in them but envy and enmity. It is
only necessary to possess them, to know how little they contribute to happiness, or rather
how hostile they are to it." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander Donald, 1788. ME 6:427
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Disadvantages of Public
Service
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"Public offices were [not]
made for private convenience." --Thomas Jefferson to the Duchesse d'Auville, 1790. ME
8:16
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"The general idea is, that
those who receive annual compensations should be constantly at their posts. Our
constituents might not in the first moment consider: 1st, that we all have property to
take care of, which we cannot abandon for temporary salaries; 2nd, that we have health to
take care of, which at this season [i.e., summer] cannot be preserved at Washington; 3rd,
that while at our separate homes our public duties are fully executed, and at much greater
personal labor than while we are together, when a short conference saves a long
letter." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1807. ME 11:351
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"Politics [is] a subject I
never loved and now hate." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1796.
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Specific Areas of Service |
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"There [are moments] in
which the aid of an able pen [is] important to place things in their just attitude."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1798. (*)
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"It is the duty of every
good citizen to use all the opportunities which occur to him for preserving documents
relating to the history of our country." --Thomas Jefferson to Hugh P. Taylor, 1823.
ME 15:473
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"The man who loves his
country on its own account, and not merely for its trappings of interest or power, can
never be divorced from it, can never refuse to come forward when he finds that she is
engaged in dangers which he has the means of warding off." --Thomas Jefferson to
Elbridge Gerry, 1797. ME 9:407
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"The patriot, like the
Christian, must learn that to bear revilings and persecutions is a part of his duty; and
in proportion as the trial is severe, firmness under it becomes more requisite and
praiseworthy. It requires, indeed, self-command. But that will be fortified in proportion
as the calls for its exercise are repeated." --Thomas Jefferson to James Sullivan,
1805. ME 11:73
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"Lethargy [is] the
forerunner of death to the public liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens
Smith, 1787.
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"Let the eye of vigilance
never be closed." --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821. ME 15:326
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"We, I hope, shall adhere to
our republican government and keep it to its original principles by narrowly watching
it." --Thomas Jefferson to ------, March 18, 1793. ME 9:45
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"It behooves our citizens to
be on their guard, to be firm in their principles, and full of confidence in themselves.
We are able to preserve our self-government if we will but think so." --Thomas
Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., 1800. ME 10:151
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"Very many and very
meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its
republican tack. To preserve it in that will require unremitting vigilance." --Thomas
Jefferson to William T. Barry, 1822. ME 15:388
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"If our fellow-citizens, now
solidly republican, will sacrifice favoritism towards men for the preservation of
principle, we may hope that no divisions will again endanger a degeneracy in our
government." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard M. Johnson, 1808. ME 12:10
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"Our duty to ourselves, to
posterity, and to mankind, call on us by every motive which is sacred or honorable, to
watch over the safety of our beloved country during the troubles which agitate and
convulse the residue of the world, and to sacrifice to that all personal and local
considerations." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to New York Legislature, 1809. ME 16:362
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"Come forward, then, and
give us the aid of your talents and the weight of your character towards the new
establishment of republicanism." --Thomas Jefferson to Robert Livingston, 1800.
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"Love your neighbor as
yourself, and your country more than yourself." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas
Jefferson Smith, 1825. ME 16:110
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"Love your neighbor as
yourself, and your country more than life." --Thomas Jefferson to T. J. Grotjan,
1824.
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ME, FE = Memorial Edition, Ford Edition. |
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