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The Future of Democracy in America
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The Founding Fathers knew well
the kind of government they were trying to avoid, but could only project what their own
experiment in government would become. They based this projection on their analysis of
governments in the past, on principles derived from natural rights, and on an assessment
of the nature of man. Jefferson always maintained a great faith in the American people and
their capacity for self-government. The success of the Founding Fathers' experiment only
attests to their wisdom and genius.
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"The spirit of our
citizens,... rising with a strength and majesty which show the loveliness of freedom, will
make this government in practice what it is in principle, a model for the protection of
man in a state of freedom and order." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus
Kosciusko, 1799. ME 10:116
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"We can no longer say there
is nothing new under the sun. For this whole chapter in the history of man is new. The
great extent of our republic is new. Its sparse habitation is new. The mighty wave of
public opinion which has rolled over it is new." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph
Priestley, 1801. ME 10:229
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"The main body of our
citizens... remain true to their republican principles; the whole landed interest is
republican, and so is a great mass of talents. Against us are... all timid men who prefer
the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty... We are likely to preserve the
liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils. But we shall preserve it,
and our mass of weight and wealth on the good side is so great as to leave no danger that
force will ever be attempted against us." --Thomas Jefferson to Philip Mazzei, 1796.
ME 9:336
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"My confidence in our
present high functionaries, as well as in my countrymen generally, leaves me without much
fear for the future." --Thomas Jefferson to James Fishback, 1809. ME 12:315
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Trusting the Wisdom of the
Future
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"The daily advance of
science will enable [the existing generation] to administer the commonwealth with
increased wisdom." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:494
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"Those who will come after
us will be as wise as we are, and as able to take care of themselves as we have
been." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1811. ME 13:40
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"The rising race are all
republicans. We were educated in royalism; no wonder, if some of us retain that idolatry
still. Our young people are educated in republicanism; an apostasy from that to royalism
is unprecedented and impossible." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:312
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"Every nation is liable to
be under whatever bubble, design, or delusion may puff up in moments when off their
guard." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816. ME 14:381
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"The spirit of 1776 is not
dead. It has only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially
republican. But their virtuous feelings have been played on by some fact with more
fiction; they have been the dupes of artful maneuvers, and made for a moment to be willing
instruments in forging chains for themselves. But times and truth dissipated the delusion,
and opened their eyes." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Lomax, 1799. ME 10:123
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"The unquestionable
republicanism of the American mind will break through the mist under which it has been
clouded, and will oblige its agents to reform the principles and practices of their
administration." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:83
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Strengths of Republican
Character
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"The order and good sense
displayed in this recovery from delusion, and in the momentous crisis which lately arose
[preceding the Presidential election of 1800], really bespeak a strength of character in
our nation which augurs well for the duration of our Republic; and I am much better
satisfied now of its stability than I was before it was tried." --Thomas Jefferson to
Joseph Priestly, 1801. ME 10:229
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"The resistance which our
republic has opposed to a course of operation for which it was not destined, shows a
strength of body which affords the most flattering presage of duration." --Thomas
Jefferson to Gen. James Warren, 1801. ME 10:231
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"Our experience so far has
satisfactorily manifested the competence of a republican government to maintain and
promote the best interests of its citizens; and every future year, I doubt not, will
contribute to settle a question on which reason and a knowledge of the character and
circumstances of our fellow citizens could never admit a doubt, and much less condemn them
as fit subjects to be consigned to the dominion of wealth and force." --Thomas
Jefferson: Reply to Connecticut Republicans, 1808. ME 16:322
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"It was by the sober sense
of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism,
and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back." --Thomas
Jefferson to Arthur Campbell, 1797. ME 9:421
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"I do believe we shall
continue to [grow], to multiply and prosper until we exhibit an association powerful, wise
and happy beyond what has yet been seen by men." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams,
1812. ME 13:123
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"As in philosophy and war,
so in government, in oratory, in painting, in the plastic art, we might show that America,
though but a child of yesterday, has already given hopeful proofs of genius, as well as of
the nobler kinds, which arouse the best feelings of man, which call him into action, which
substantiate his freedom, and conduct him to happiness, as of the subordinate, which serve
to amuse him only." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.VI, 1782. ME 2:95
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"We are all... in agitation,
even in our peaceful country. For in peace as well as in war, the mind must be kept in
motion." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:491
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"We contemplate [our] rapid
growth, and the prospect it holds up to us, not with a view to the injuries it may enable
us to do to others in some future day, but to the settlement of the extensive country
still remaining vacant within our limits, to the multiplications of men susceptible of
happiness, educated in the love of order, habituated to self-government, and valuing its
blessings above all price." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Annual Message, 1801. ME 16:322
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"In a state of the world
unparalleled in times past, and never again to be expected, according to human
probabilities, no form of government has, so far, better shielded its citizens from the
prevailing afflictions." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Connecticut Republicans, 1808.
ME 16:322
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"We, too, shall encounter
follies; but if great, they will be short, if long, they will be light; and the vigor of
our country will get the better of them." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Digges, 1806.
ME 11:113
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"We may still believe with
security that the great body of the American people must for ages yet be substantially
republican." --Thomas Jefferson to Robert R. Livingston, 1799. ME 10:119
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"I fear nothing for our
liberty from the assaults of force; but I have seen and felt much, and fear more from
English books, English prejudices, English manners, and the apes, the dupes, and designs
among our professional crafts. When I look around me for security against these
seductions, I find it in the wide spread of our agricultural citizens, in their
unsophisticated minds, their independence and their power, if called on, to crush the
Humists of our cities, and to maintain the principles which severed us from England."
--Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:120
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"To cultivate peace and
maintain commerce and navigation in all their lawful enterprises; to foster our fisheries
and nurseries of navigation and for the nurture of man, and protect the manufactures
adapted to our circumstances; to preserve the faith of the nation by an exact discharge of
its debts and contracts, expend the public money with the same care and economy we would
practise with our own, and impose on our citizens no unnecessary burden; to keep in all
things within the pale of our constitutional powers, and cherish the federal union as the
only rock of safety--these, fellow citizens, are the landmarks by which we are to guide
ourselves in all our proceedings. By continuing to make these our rule of action, we shall
endear to our countrymen the true principles of their constitution, and promote a union of
sentiment and of action equally auspicious to their happiness and safety." --Thomas
Jefferson: 2nd Annual Message, 1802. ME 3:348
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Guarding Against Corruption |
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"Our lot has been cast by
the favor of heaven in a country and under circumstances highly auspicious to our peace
and prosperity, and where no pretense can arise for the degrading and oppressive
establishments of Europe. It is our happiness that honorable distinctions flow only from
public approbation, and that finds no object in titled dignitaries and pageants. Let us,
then, endeavor carefully to guard this happy state of things by keeping a watchful eye
over the disaffection of wealth and ambition to the republican principles of our
Constitution, and by sacrificing all our local and personal interests to the cultivation
of the Union and maintenance of the authority of the laws." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply
to Pennsylvania Democratic-Republicans, 1809.
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"The new government... has
shown genuine dignity, in my opinion, in exploding adulatory titles; they are the
offerings of abject baseness, and nourish that degrading vice in the people."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:450, Papers 15:367
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"I hope the terms of
Excellency, Honor, Worship, Esquire, forever disappear from among us... I wish that of Mr.
would follow them." --Thomas Jefferson to William Carmichael, 1789. ME 7:433, Papers
15:336
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"Time indeed changes manners
and notions, and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. But time produces
also corruption of principles, and against this it is the duty of good citizens to be ever
on the watch, and if the gangrene is to prevail at last, let the day be kept off as long
as possible." --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821. ME 15:325
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"We are to guard against
ourselves; not against ourselves as we are, but as we may be; for who can imagine what we
may become under circumstances not now imaginable?" --Thomas Jefferson to Jedidiah
Morse, 1822. ME 15:360
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"What person... would have
believed that within so short a period, not only the jealous spirit of liberty which
shaped every operation of our revolution, but even the common principles of English
whigism would be scouted, and the tory principle of passive obedience under the
new-fangled names of confidence and responsbility become entirely
triumphant?" --Thomas Jefferson to Robert R. Livingston, 1799. ME 10:118
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"I have never dreamed that
all opposition was to cease. The clergy, who have missed their union with the State, the
Anglomen, who have missed their union with England, and the political adventurers, who
have lost the chance of swindling and plunder in the waste of public money, will never
cease to bawl on the breaking up of their sanctuary." --Thomas Jefferson to Gideon
Granger, 1801. ME 10:259
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"The boisterous sea of
liberty indeed is never without a wave." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1820. ME
15:300
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"[It is] in maintenance of
[our] principles... I verily believe the future happiness of our country essentially
depends." --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819. ME 15:216
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"Whenever our own
dissensions shall let [monarchism and Anglicism] in upon us, the last ray of free
government closes on the horizon of the world." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane,
1811. ME 13:66
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"So long as [the principles
of our revolution] prevail, we are safe from everything which can assail us from without
or within." --Thomas Jefferson to William Lambert, 1810. ME 12:397
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"[We] should look forward to
a time, and that not a distant one, when corruption in this as in the country from which
we derive our origin will have seized the heads of government and be spread by them
through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people and make
them pay the price. Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic and will be
alike influenced by the same causes." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIII,
1782. ME 2:164
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"How long we can hold our
ground, I do not know. We are not incorruptible; on the contrary, corruption is making
sensible though silent progress." --Thomas Jefferson to Tench Coxe, 1799.
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"Even in this, the birth of
our government, some members [of the Legislature] were found sordid enough to bend their
duty to their interests and to look after personal rather than public good." --Thomas
Jefferson: The Anas, 1818. ME 1:271
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"[When] corruption.. has
prevailed in those offices [of]... government and [has] so familiarized itself as that men
otherwise honest could look on it without horror,... [then we must] be alive to the
suppression of this odious practice and... bring to punishment and brand with eternal
disgrace every man guilty of it, whatever be his station." --Thomas Jefferson to W.
C. C. Claiborne, 1804. (*)
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"[Montesquieu wrote in
Spirit
of the Laws,
VIII,c.12:] 'When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility
of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its
lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.'" --Thomas
Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.
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"The time to guard against
corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep
the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall
have entered." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIII, 1782. ME 2:165
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"It is better to correct
error while new and before it becomes inveterate by habit and custom." --Thomas
Jefferson: Report to Congress, 1777. FE 2:136
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"It is safer to suppress an
error in its first conception than to trust to any after-correction." --Thomas
Jefferson: Circular to Foreign Ministers, 1793. ME 9:19
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"We are always told that
things are going on well; why change them? "Chi sta bene, non si muove,"
said the Italian, "let him who stands well, stand still." This is true; and I
verily believe they would go on well with us under an absolute monarch, while our present
character remains of order, industry and love of peace, and restrained, as he would be, by
the proper spirit of the people. But it is while it remains such, we should provide
against the consequences of its deterioration. And let us rest in the hope that it will
yet be done, and spare ourselves the pain of evils which may never happen." --Thomas
Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:22
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"We... owe it to mankind as
well as to ourselves to restrain wrong by resistance and to defeat those calculations of
which justice is not the basis." --Thomas Jefferson: 7th Annual Message, 1807. FE
9:146
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"To save permanent rights,
temporary sacrifices [are] necessary." --Thomas Jefferson to William Eustis, 1809.
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"The happiness of
governments like ours wherein the people are truly the mainspring is that they are never
to be despaired of. When an evil becomes so glaring as to strike them generally, they
arouse themselves, and it is redressed. He only is then the popular man and can get into
office who shows the best dispositions to reform the evil. This truth was obvious on
several occasions during the [Revolutionary] war, and this character in our government
saved us. Calamity [is] our best physician." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price,
1785. Papers 7:630
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"It is part of the American
character to consider nothing as desperate, to surmount every difficulty by resolution and
contrivance." --Thomas Jefferson to Martha Jefferson, 1787.
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"The natural progress of
things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." --Thomas Jefferson to
Edward Carrington, 1788. ME 7:37
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"If we find our government
in all its branches rushing headlong... into the arms of monarchy, if we find them
violating our dearest rights, the trial by jury, the freedom of the press, the freedom of
opinion, civil or religious, or opening on our peace of mind or personal safety the
sluices of terrorism, if we see them raising standing armies, when the absence of all
other danger points to these as the sole objects on which they are to be employed, then
indeed let us withdraw and call the nation to its tents. But while our functionaries are
wise, and honest, and vigilant, let us move compactly under their guidance, and we have
nothing to fear. Things may here and there go a little wrong. It is not in their power to
prevent it. But all will be right in the end, though not perhaps by the shortest
means." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1811. ME 13:29
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Guarding Against Secession |
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"It is a momentous truth,
and happily of universal impression on the public mind, that our safety rests on the
preservation of our Union." --Thomas Jefferson: to Rhode Island Assembly, 1801. ME
10:262
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"Certain States from local
and occasional discontents might attempt to secede from the Union. This is certainly
possible; and would be befriended by this regular organization [of the Union into States].
But it is not probable that local discontents can spread to such an extent as to be able
to face the sound parts of so extensive an Union; and if ever they should reach the
majority, they would then become the regular government, acquire the ascendency in
Congress and be able to redress their own grievances by laws peaceably and
constitutionally passed. And even the States in which local discontents might engender a
commencement of fermentation, would be paralyzed and self-checked by that very division
into parties into which we have fallen, into which all States must fall wherein men are at
liberty to think, speak, and act freely according to the diversities of their individual
conformations, and which are, perhaps, essential to preserve the purity of the government
by the censorship which these parties habitually exercise over each other." --Thomas
Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811. ME 13:20
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"A spirit which should...
countenance the advocates for a dissolution of the Union and for setting in hostile array
one portion of our citizens against another... would prove indeed that it is high time for
every friend to his country, in a firm and decided manner, to express his sentiments of
the measures which government has adopted to avert the impending evils, unhesitatingly to
pledge himself for the support of the laws, liberties and independence of his country;
and... to resolve that for the preservation of the Union, the support and enforcement of
the laws, and for the resistance and repulsion of every enemy, they will hold themselves
in readiness and put at stake if necessary their lives and fortunes on the pledge of their
sacred honor." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Connecticut Republicans, 1809. ME 16:365
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"I can scarcely contemplate
a more incalculable evil than the breaking of the Union into two or more parts."
--Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1792. ME 8:346
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"I regret that I am now to
die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776 to
acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise
and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not
to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw
away against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission,
they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves and of
treason against the hopes of the world." --Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, 1820. ME
15:250
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"It is time for all good
citizens to rally round the constituted authorities by a public expression of their
determination to support the laws and government of their choice, and to frown into
silence all disorganizing movements. Strong in our numbers, our position and resources, we
can never be endangered but by schisms at home." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to
Citizens of Wilmington, 1809. ME 16:335
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A Geographical Separation |
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"The coincidence of a marked
principle, moral and political, with a geographical line, once conceived, I feared would
never more be obliterated from the mind; that it would be recurring on every occasion and
renewing irritations, until it would kindle such mutual and mortal hatred, as to render
separation preferable to eternal discord. I have been among the most sanguine in believing
that our Union would be of long duration. I now doubt it much, and see the event at no
great distance, and the direct consequence of this question; not by the line which has
been so confidently counted on -- the laws of nature control this; but by the Potomac,
Ohio and Missouri, or more probably, the Mississippi upwards to our northern boundary. My
only comfort and confidence is, that I shall not live to see this; and I envy not the
present generation the glory of throwing away the fruits of their fathers' sacrifices of
life and fortune, and of rendering desperate the experiment which was to decide ultimately
whether man is capable of self-government. This treason against human hope will signalize
their epoch in future history as the counterpart of the medal of their predecessors."
--Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1820. ME 15:247
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"Whether a dispassionate
discussion before the public of the advantages and disadvantages of separation to both
parties would be the best medicine for this dialytic fever, or to consider it as sacrilege
ever to touch the question, may be doubted. I am, myself, generally disposed to indulge
and to follow reason." --Thomas Jefferson to James Martin, 1813. ME 13:383
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"The idea of a geographical
line once suggested will brood in the minds of all those who prefer the gratification of
their ungovernable passions to the peace and union of their country." --Thomas
Jefferson to Mark Langdon Hill, 1820. ME 15:243
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"The line of division lately
marked out between different portions of our confederacy, is such as will never, I fear,
be obliterated." --Thomas Jefferson to James Breckinridge, 1821. ME 15:315
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"Should... schism be pushed
to separation, it will be for a short term only; two or three years' trial will bring them
back, like quarreling lovers, to renewed embraces and increased affections. The experiment
of separation would soon prove to both that they had mutually miscalculated their best
interests. And even were the parties in Congress to secede in a passion, the soberer
people would call a convention and cement again the severance attempted by the insanity of
their functionaries. With this consoling view, my greatest grief would be for the fatal
effect of such an event on the hopes and happiness of the world." --Thomas Jefferson
to Richard Rush, 1820. ME 15:283
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"We feel that we are acting
under obligations not confined to the limits of our own society. It is impossible not to
be sensible that we are acting for all mankind; that circumstances denied to others but
indulged to us have imposed on us the duty of proving what is the degree of freedom and
self-government in which a society may venture to leave its individual members."
--Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1802. ME 10:324
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"It is indeed an animating
thought that while we are securing the rights of ourselves and posterity, we are pointing
out the way to struggling nations who wish, like us, to emerge from their tyrannies
also." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Address, 1790. ME 8:7, Papers 16:225
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"The example we have given
to the world is single: that of changing our form of government under the authority of
reason only, without bloodshed." --Thomas Jefferson to Ralph Izard, 1788. ME 7:73,
Papers 13:373
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"I hope that peace and amity
with all nations will long be the character of our land, and that its prosperity under the
Charter will react on the mind of Europe, and profit her by the example." --Thomas
Jefferson to the Earl of Buchan, 1803. ME 10:400
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"[We] owe to republicanism,
and indeed to the future hopes of man, a faithful record of the march of this
government, which may encourage the oppressed to go and do so likewise." --Thomas
Jefferson to Joel Barlow, 1810. ME 12:351
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"The system of government
which shall keep us afloat amidst the wreck of the world, will be immortalized in
history." --Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 1810. ME 12:372
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"With all the imperfections
of our present government, it is without comparison the best existing, or that ever did
exist." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:227
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"In the hour of death we
shall have the consolation to see established in the land of our fathers the most
wonderful work of wisdom and disinterested patriotism that has ever yet appeared on the
globe." --Thomas Jefferson to George Clinton, 1803. ME 10:440
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"Possessing ourselves the
combined blessing of liberty and order, we wish the same to other countries."
--Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823. ME 15:481
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"That we should wish to see
the people of other countries free is as natural and at least as justifiable as that one
King should wish to see the Kings of other countries maintained in their despotism."
--Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1817. ME 15:132
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"The preservation of the
holy fire [of liberty] is confided to us by the world, and the sparks which will emanate
from it will ever serve to rekindle it in other quarters of the globe." --Thomas
Jefferson to Samuel Knox, 1810. ME 12:361
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"We exist and are quoted as
standing proofs that a government so modeled as to rest continually on the will of the
whole society is a practicable government. Were we to break in pieces, it would damp the
hopes and the efforts of the good and give triumph to those of the bad [throughout] the
whole enslaved world. As members, therefore, of the universal society of mankind and
standing in high and responsible relation with them, it is our sacred duty to suppress
passion among ourselves and not to blast the confidence we have inspired of proof that a
government of reason is better than one of force." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard
Rush, 1820. ME 15:284
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"I hope and firmly believe
that the whole world will sooner or later feel benefit from the issue of our assertion of
the rights of man. Although the horrors of the French Revolution have damped for awhile
the ardor of the patriots in every country, yet it is not extinguished--it will never die.
The sense of right has been excited in every breast, and the spark will be rekindled by
the very oppressions of that detestable tyranny employed to quench it. The errors of the
honest patriots of France and the crimes of her Dantons and Robespierres will be forgotten
in the more encouraging contemplation of our sober example and steady march to our object.
Hope will strengthen the presumption that what has been done once may be done again."
--Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Galloway, 1812. ME 13:130
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"[The] mind [of suffering
man] has been opening and advancing, a sentiment of his wrongs has been spreading, and it
will end in the ultimate establishment of his rights. To effect this nothing is wanting
but a general concurrence of will, and some fortunate accident will produce that."
--Thomas Jefferson to Dugald Stewart, 1824.
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"We can surely boast of
having set the world a beautiful example of a government reformed by reason alone without
bloodshed." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81
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"A government regulating
itself by what is wise and just for the many, uninfluenced by the local and selfish views
of the few who direct their affairs, has not been seen, perhaps, on earth. Or if it
existed for a moment at the birth of ours, it would not be easy to fix the term of its
continuance. Still, I believe it does exist here in a greater degree than anywhere else;
and for its growth and continuance... I offer sincere prayers." --Thomas Jefferson to
William H. Crawford, 1816. ME 15:31
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"I hope... the good sense
and patriotism of the friends of free government of every shade will spare us the painful,
the deplorable spectacle of brethren sacrificing to small passions the great, the immortal
and immutable rights of men." --Thomas Jefferson to John Dickinson, 1801.
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"When we reflect that the
eyes of the virtuous all over the earth are turned with anxiety on us as the only
depositories of the sacred fire of liberty, and that our falling into anarchy would decide
forever the destinies of mankind and seal the political heresy that man is incapable of
self-government, the only contest between divided friends should be who will dare farthest
into the ranks of the common enemy." --Thomas Jefferson to John Hollins, 1811. ME
13:58
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"I will not believe our
labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady
advance." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1821. ME 15:334
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"We have no interests nor
passions different from those of our fellow citizens. We have the same object: the success
of representative government. Nor are we acting for ourselves alone, but for the whole
human race. The event of our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with
self-government. The eyes of suffering humanity are fixed on us with anxiety as their only
hope, and on such a theatre, for such a cause, we must suppress all smaller passions and
local considerations." --Thomas Jefferson to Gov. Hall, 1802.
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"The last hope of human
liberty in this world rests on us. We ought, for so dear a stake, to sacrifice every
attachment and every enmity." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1811. ME 13:29
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"May [our Declaration of
Independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others
later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which
monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume
the blessings and security of self-government... All eyes are opened, or opening, to the
rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman, 1826. ME 16:181
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"The flames kindled on the
Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the
feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who
work them." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1821. ME 15:334
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ME, FE = Memorial Edition, Ford Edition. |
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