| Good Government |
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Government should be judged by
how well it meets its legitimate objectives. Good government is that which most
effectively secures the rights of the people and the fruits of their labor, promotes their
happiness, and does their will.
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"The care of human life and
happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good
government." --Thomas Jefferson to Maryland Republicans, 1809. ME 16:359
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"The only orthodox object of
the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to
the general mass of those associated under it." --Thomas Jefferson to M. van der
Kemp, 1812. ME 13:135
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"The first object of human
association [is] the full improvement of their condition." --Thomas Jefferson:
Declaration and Protest of Virginia, 1825. ME 17:444
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"The happiness and
prosperity of our citizens... is the only legitimate object of government and the first
duty of governors." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811. ME 13:41
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"The energies of the
nation... shall be reserved for improvement of the condition of man, not wasted in his
destruction." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Address, 1801. ME 10:248
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"Here... will be preserved a
model of government, securing to man his rights and the fruits of his labor, by an
organization constantly subject to his own will." --Thomas Jefferson to William
Plumer, 1815. ME 14:237
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"The freedom and happiness
of man... [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government." --Thomas Jefferson to
Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1810. ME 12:369
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"The equal rights of man,
and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate
objects of government." --Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823. ME 15:482
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"To preserve the peace of
our fellow citizens, promote their prosperity and happiness, reunite opinion, cultivate a
spirit of candor, moderation, charity and forbearance toward one another, are objects
calling for the efforts and sacrifices of every good man and patriot. Our religion enjoins
it; our happiness demands it; and no sacrifice is requisite but of passions hostile to
both." --Thomas Jefferson: to Rhode Island Assembly, 1801. ME 10:262
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"All religions are equally
independent here, our laws knowing no distinction of country, of classes among individuals
and with nations, our [creed] is justice and reciprocity." --Thomas Jefferson to the
Emperor of Morocco, 1803. ME 19:136
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The Necessity of Society and Government
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"Society is necessary to
[man's] happiness and even existence." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Law, 1814. ME
14:142
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"It will be said that great
societies cannot exist without government." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia
Q.XI, 1782. ME 2:129
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"Without society, and a
society to our taste, men are never contented." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe,
1786. ME 6:17
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"It is a problem, not clear
in my mind, that [a society without government, as among our Indians] is not the best. But
I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population." --Thomas
Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:64
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A Society's Self-determination
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"Every society has a right
to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that
if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers
which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that
we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may
exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease." --Thomas
Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816. ME 15:28
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"Individuals are parts only
of a society, subject to the laws of a whole." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison,
1789. ME 7:456, Papers 15:393
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"Society [has] a right to
erase from the roll of its members any one who rendered his own existence inconsistent
with theirs; to withdraw from him the protection of their laws, and to remove him from
among them by exile, or even by death if necessary."--Thomas Jefferson to L. H.
Girardin, 1815. ME 14:277
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"Every people may establish
what form of government they please, and change it as they please, the will of the nation
being the only thing essential." --Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1792. ME 1:330
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"[The proposal to establish
a new] form of government... is a work of the most interesting nature, and such as every
individual would wish to have his voice in... Should a bad government be instituted for us
in future, it had been as well to have accepted at first the bad one offered to us from
beyond the water without the risk and expense of contest." --Thomas Jefferson to
Thomas Nelson, 1776. ME 4:254, Papers 1:292
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"The provisions we have made
[for the support of civil government and the administration of justice] are such as please
ourselves; they answer the substantial purposes of government and of justice, and other
purposes than these should not be answered." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft, Reply to Lord
North, 1775. Papers 1:227
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Government Adapted to the People
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"The excellence of every
government is its adaptation to the state of those to be governed by it." --Thomas
Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816. ME 14:487
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"Shall we mould our citizens
to the law, or the law to our citizens? And in solving this question their peculiar
character is an element not to be neglected." --Thomas Jefferson to John Quincy
Adams, 1817. ME 15:145
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"The laws... which must
effect [a people's happiness] must flow from their own habits, their own feelings, and the
resources of their own minds. No stranger to these could possibly propose regulations
adapted to them. Every people have their own particular habits, ways of thinking, manners,
etc., which have grown up with them from their infancy, are become a part of their nature,
and to which the regulations which are to make them happy must be accommodated."
--Thomas Jefferson to William Lee, 1817. ME 15:101
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"Such indeed are the
different circumstances, prejudices, and habits of different nations, that the
constitution of no one would be reconcilable to any other in every point." --Thomas
Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823. ME 15:484
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Comparison to Governments of Europe
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"History, in general, only
informs us what bad government is." --Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807. ME
11:223
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"I sincerely wish you may
find it convenient to come here [to Europe]. The pleasure of the trip will be less than
you expect, but the utility greater. It will make you adore your own country, its soil,
its climate, its equality, liberty, laws, people and manners. My God! how little do my
countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other
people on earth enjoy. I confess I had no idea of it myself. While we shall see multiplied
instances of Europeans going to live in America, I will venture to say no man now living
will ever see an instance of an American removing to settle in Europe and continuing
there. Come then and see the proofs of this, and on your return add your testimony to that
of every thinking American, in order to satisfy our countrymen how much it is their
interest to preserve uninfected by contagion those peculiarities in their government and
manners to which they are indebted for these blessings." --Thomas Jefferson to James
Monroe, 1785. ME 5:21, Papers 8:233
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"Though there is less wealth
[in my native country than in Europe], there is more freedom, more ease, and less
misery." --Thomas Jefferson to Baron Geismer, 1785. ME 5:129, Papers 8:500
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"While the great mass of the
people [in Europe] are thus suffering under physical and moral oppression, I have
endeavored to examine more nearly the condition of the great, to appreciate the true value
of the circumstances in their situation which dazzle the bulk of spectators, and
especially to compare it with that degree of happiness which is enjoyed in America by
every class of people. Intrigues of love occupy the younger, and those of ambition, the
elder part of the great. Conjugal love having no existence among them, domestic happiness,
of which that is the basis, is utterly unknown. In lieu of this are substituted pursuits
which nourish and invigorate all our bad passions, and which offer only moments of ecstasy
amidst days and months of restlessness and torment. Much, very much inferior this to the
tranquil permanent felicity with which domestic society in America blesses most of its
inhabitants, leaving them to follow steadily those pursuits which health and reason
approve, and rendering truly delicious the intervals of these pursuits." --Thomas
Jefferson to Charles Bellini, 1785. ME 5:152, Papers 8:568
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The Form of Government Must be Right
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"It is difficult to conceive
how so good a people, with so good a King [as Louis XVI of France], so well-disposed
rulers in general, so genial a climate, so fertile a soil, should be rendered so
ineffectual for producing human happiness by one single curse--that of a bad form of
government. But it is a fact; in spite of the mildness of their governors, the people are
ground to powder by the vices of the form of government. Of twenty millions of people
supposed to be in France, I am of opinion there are nineteen millions more wretched, more
accursed in every circumstance of human existence than the most conspicuously wretched
individual of the whole United States." --Thomas Jefferson to Elizabeth Trist, 1785.
ME 5:81, Papers 8:568
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"To constrain the brute
force of the people, [the European governments] deem it necessary to keep them down by
hard labor, poverty and ignorance, and to take from them, as from bees, so much of their
earnings, as that unremitting labor shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient surplus to
sustain a scanty and miserable life." --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME
15:440
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"I am astonished at some
people's considering a kingly government as a refuge. Advise such to read the fable of the
frogs who solicited Jupiter for a king. If that does not put them to rights, send them to
Europe, to see something of the trappings of monarchy, and I will undertake that every man
shall go back thoroughly cured. If all the evils which can arise among us from the
republican form of government, from this day to the day of judgment, could be put into a
scale against what [France] suffers from its monarchical form in a week, or England in a
month, the latter would preponderate." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Hawkins, 1787.
ME 6:232
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"A more rational government
[is] one in which the will of the people should have... a moderating and salutary
influence." --Thomas Jefferson to William Bentley, 1815. ME 14:364
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"[Ours is] a government
founded in the will of its citizens, and directed to no object but their happiness."
--Thomas Jefferson: Reply to North Carolina General Assembly, 1808. ME 16:300
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"The only condition on earth
to be compared with ours, in my opinion, is that of the Indian, where they have still less
law than we. The European, are governments of kites over pigeons." --Thomas Jefferson
to Edward Rutledge, 1787. ME 6:251
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"It is a misfortune that
[our countrymen] do not sufficiently know the value of their constitutions, and how much
happier they are rendered by them, than any other people on earth by the governments under
which they live." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1787. ME 6:322
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| But Not Too Much Government |
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"[Some] seem to think that
[civilization's] advance has brought on too complicated a state of society, and that we
should gain in happiness by treading back our steps a little way. I think, myself, that we
have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the
labor of the industrious. I believe it might be much simplified to the relief of those who
maintain it." --Thomas Jefferson to William Ludlow, 1824. ME 16:75
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"Government as well as
religion has furnished its schisms, its persecutions, and its devices for fattening
idleness on the earnings of the people." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Clay, 1815. ME
14:233
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"When we consider that this
government is charged with the external and mutual relations only of these States; that
the States themselves have principal care of our persons, our property and our reputation,
constituting the great field of human concerns, we may well doubt whether our organization
is not too complicated, too expensive; whether offices and officers have not been
multiplied unnecessarily and sometimes injuriously to the service they were meant to
promote." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Annual Message, 1801. ME 3:331
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"It is not by the
consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by their distribution, that good government
is effected." --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:122
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"Were we directed from
Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread." --Thomas
Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:122
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"Anarchy [is] necessarily
consequent to inefficiency." --Thomas Jefferson to George Mason, 1790. ME 8:35
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"We must make our election
between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude." --Thomas Jefferson to
Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39
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"We are now vibrating
between too much and too little government, and the pendulum will rest finally in the
middle." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Smith, 1788. FE 5:3
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"A just mean [would be] a
government of laws addressed to the reason of the people and not to their
weaknesses." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, 1793. ME 9:13
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| Energetic Government |
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"It has been said... that
our governments, both federal and particular, want energy; that it is difficult to
restrain both individuals and States from committing wrong. This is true, and it is an
inconvenience. On the other hand, that energy which absolute governments derive from an
armed force, which is the effect of the bayonet constantly held at the breast of every
citizen, and which resembles very much the stillness of the grave, must be admitted also
to have its inconveniences. We weigh the two together and like best to submit to the
former. Compare the number of wrongs committed with impunity by citizens among us with
those committed by the sovereign in other countries, and the last will be found most
numerous, most oppressive on the mind, and most degrading of the dignity of man."
--Thomas Jefferson: Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786. ME 17:122
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"I own I am not a friend to
a very energetic government. It is always oppressive. It places the governors indeed more
at their ease, at the expense of the people." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison,
1787. (Forrest version) ME 6:391
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"I know, indeed, that some
honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is
not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful
experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic
and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want
energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary the strongest
Government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the laws,
would fly to the standard of the law and would meet invasions of the public order as his
own personal concern." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801. ME 3:319
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"Let this be the distinctive
mark of an American that in cases of commotion, he enlists himself under no man's banner,
inquires for no man's name, but repairs to the standard of the laws. Do this, and you need
never fear anarchy or tyranny. Your government will be perpetual." --Thomas
Jefferson: Manuscript, 1801? FE 8:1
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"Although a republican
government is slow to move, yet when once in motion, its momentum becomes
irresistible." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis C. Gray, 1815. ME 14:270
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"A free government is of all
others the most energetic." --Thomas Jefferson to John Dickinson, 1801. ME 10:217
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Prescription for Good Government
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"A good administration in a
republican government,... securing to us our dearest rights and the practical enjoyment of
all our liberties,... can never fail to give consolation to the friends of free
government, and mortification to its enemies." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Rhode
Island Republicans, 1809. ME 16:354
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"A... chief [executive]
strictly limited, the right of war vested in the legislative body, a rigid economy of the
public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards
keeping the government honest and unoppressive." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette,
1823. (*) ME 15:491
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"A noiseless course, not
meddling with the affairs of others, unattractive of notice, is a mark that society is
going on in happiness. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the
people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy." --Thomas
Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1802. ME 10:342
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"To us [is committed] the
important task of proving by example that a government, if organized in all its parts on
the representative principle, unadulterated by the infusion of spurious elements, if
founded not in the fears and follies of man but on his reason, on his sense of right, on
the predominance of the social over his dissocial passions, may be so free as to restrain
him in no moral right and so firm as to protect him from every moral wrong." --Thomas
Jefferson to Amos Marsh, 1801. ME 10:292
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"This I hope will be the age
of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of
honesty, not of mere force." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1796. FE 7:56
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"The whole art of government
consists in the art of being honest." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America,
1774. ME 1:209, Papers 1:134
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"With all [our] blessings,
what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more,
fellow citizens--a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one
another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and
improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is
the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our
felicities." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801. ME 3:320
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"Our wish... is, that the
public efforts may be directed honestly to the public good, that peace be cultivated,
civil and religious liberty unassailed, law and order preserved, equality of rights
maintained, and that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from
his own industry, or that of his fathers." --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural, 1805.
ME 3:382
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| ME, FE = Memorial Edition, Ford Edition. |
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