| Governed by Reason |
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We who have grown up in a
democratic republic take for granted a government of the people based on reason and the
people's choice. But before our nation was founded, modern governments were based on
authoritarian domination. The people in general were considered little more than cattle,
to be governed and controlled by those possessing wealth, education and power, and kept
under subjection lest they undermine the stability of the government. The Founding Fathers
introduced the revolutionary idea that government could rest on the reasoned choice of the
people themselves, which was thought absurd in other lands at that time.
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"My hope [is] that we have
not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by
reason." --Thomas Jefferson to George Mason, 1791. ME 8:124
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"I have so much confidence
in the good sense of man, and his qualifications for self-government, that I am never
afraid of the issue where reason is left free to exert her force." --Thomas Jefferson
to Comte Diodati, 1789. Papers 15:326
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"I am satisfied the good
sense of the people is the strongest army our government can ever have, and that it will
not fail them." --Thomas Jefferson to William Carmichael, 1786. ME 6:31
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"Let common sense and common
honesty have fair play, and they will soon set things to rights." --Thomas Jefferson
to Ezra Stiles, 1786. ME 6:25
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"It is comfortable to see
the standard of reason at length erected, after so many ages, during which the human mind
has been held in vassalage by kings, priests, and nobles; and it is honorable for us to
have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of man
may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions." --Thomas Jefferson to James
Madison, 1786. ME 6:10
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"[Our] principles [are]
founded on the immovable basis of equal right and reason." --Thomas Jefferson to
James Sullivan, 1797. ME 9:379
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"We believed that men,
enjoying in ease and security the full fruits of their own industry, enlisted by all their
interests on the side of law and order, habituated to think for themselves and to follow
their reason as their guide, would be more easily and safely governed than with minds
nourished in error and vitiated and debased... by ignorance, indigence and
oppression." --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:441
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"A government of reason is
better than one of force." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1820. ME 15:284
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"The idea of establishing a
government by reasoning and agreement, [the monarchists] publicly ridiculed as an Utopian
project, visionary and unexampled." --Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1797. ME 1:419
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"It is an insult to our
citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not." --Thomas Jefferson to
N. G. Dufief, 1814. ME 14:127
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"Our people in a body are
wise because they are under the unrestrained and unperverted operation of their own
understandings." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1802. ME 10:324
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"This blessed country of
free inquiry and belief has surrendered its creed and conscience to neither kings nor
priests." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 1822. ME 15:385
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| Reason and Truth |
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"No experiment can be more
interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the
fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth." --Thomas Jefferson to John
Tyler, 1804. ME 11:33
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"[God has bestowed]
reason... as the umpire of truth." --Thomas Jefferson to Miles King, 1814. ME 14:197
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"Truth and reason are
eternal. They have prevailed. And they will eternally prevail; however, in times and
places they may be overborne for a while by violence, military, civil, or
ecclesiastical." --Thomas Jefferson to Rev. Samuel Knox, 1810. ME 12:360
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"Truth will do well enough
if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men
to whom she is rarely known and seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure
entrance into the minds of men." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers
1:547
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| Actions Based on Reason |
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"Everyone must act according
to the dictates of his own reason." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME
11:429
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"The opinions and belief of
men depend not on their own will but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their
minds." --Thomas Jefferson: Bill for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers 2:545
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"I suppose belief to be the
assent of the mind to an intelligible proposition." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams,
1813. ME 13:350
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"Our opinions are not
voluntary. Every man's own reason must be his oracle." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin
Rush, 1813. ME 13:225
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"Everyone, certainly, must
form his judgment on the evidence accessible to himself." --Thomas Jefferson to
William Duane, 1811. ME 13:26
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"I am, myself, generally
disposed to indulge and to follow reason." --Thomas Jefferson to James Martin, 1813.
ME 13:383
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"A patient pursuit of facts,
and cautious combination and comparison of them, is the drudgery to which man is subjected
by his Maker, if he wishes to attain sure knowledge." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on
Virginia Q.VI, 1782. ME 2:97
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"When we see two facts
accompanying one another for a long time, we are apt to suppose them related as cause and
effect." --Thomas Jefferson to James Maury, 1815. ME 14:319
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"We certainly are not to
deny whatever we cannot account for. A thousand phenomena present themselves daily which
we cannot explain; but where facts are suggested bearing no analogy with the laws of
nature as yet known to us, their verity needs proofs proportioned to their difficulty. A
cautious mind will weigh well the opposition of the phenomenon to everything hitherto
observed, the strength of the testimony by which it is supported, and the errors and
misconceptions to which even our senses are liable." --Thomas Jefferson to Daniel
Salmon, 1808. ME 11:441
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"Proof is the duty of the
affirmative side. A negative cannot be positively proved." --Thomas Jefferson to
Martin Van Buren, 1824. ME 16:55
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"The proof of a negative can
only be presumptive." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1819. ME 15:206
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"What has no meaning admits
no explanation." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander Smyth, 1825. ME 16:101
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"By analyzing too minutely
we often reduce our subject to atoms, of which the mind loses its hold." --Thomas
Jefferson to Edward Everett, 1823. ME 15:414
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Fearlessly Follow Reason and Truth
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"Shake off all the fears and
servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her
seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the
existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of
reason, than that of blindfolded fear." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1787. ME
6:258 Papers 12:15
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"I was bold in the pursuit
of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and
bearding every authority which stood in their way." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas
Cooper, 1814. ME 14:85
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"It is surely time for men
to think for themselves, and to throw off the authority of names so artificially
magnified." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1820. ME 15:258
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"If [my] opinions are sound,
they will occur to others, and will prevail by their own weight, without the aid of
names." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:70
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"It is not the name, but the
thing which is essential." --Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on the Tonnage Payable, 1791.
ME 3:292
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"Lay aside all prejudice on
both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything because any other persons, or
description of persons, have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle
given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the
decision." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1787. ME 6:261
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"In a republican nation
whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of
reasoning becomes of first importance." --Thomas Jefferson to David Harding, 1824. ME
16:30
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"Nothing is so desirable to
me as that after mankind shall have been abused by such gross falsehoods as to events
while passing, their minds should at length be set to rights by genuine truth. And I can
conscientiously declare that as to myself, I wish that not only no act but no thought of
mine should be unknown." --Thomas Jefferson to James Main, 1808. ME 12:175
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"There is not a truth
existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world." --Thomas Jefferson
to Henry Lee, 1826. ME 16:179
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"There is not a truth on
earth which I fear or would disguise. But secret slanders cannot be disarmed, because they
are secret." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1806. ME 11:94
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| Moving Beyond Ignorance |
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"Old heads as well as young
may sometimes be charged with ignorance and presumption. The natural course of the human
mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism." --Thomas Jefferson to Caspar Wistar,
1807. ME 11:248
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"Unlearned views... are,
perhaps, the more confident in proportion as they are less enlightened." --Thomas
Jefferson to Caspar Wistar, 1807. ME 11:243
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"I think it is Montaigne who
has said, that ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head."
--Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Randolph, 1794. ME 9:280
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"Man once surrendering his
reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship
without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they
call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822. ME 15:409
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"It was more in our spirit
to let things come to rights by the plain dictates of common sense than by the practice of
any artifices." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1800. ME 19:120
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"I can never fear that
things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play." --Thomas Jefferson to
John Adams, 1786. ME 6:20
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"I have great confidence in
the common sense of mankind in general." --Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moor, 1800.
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| Reason Must Look Ahead |
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"The Gothic idea that we
were to look backwards instead of forwards for the improvement of the human mind, and to
recur to the annals of our ancestors for what is most perfect in government, in religion
and in learning, is worthy of those bigots in religion and government by whom it has been
recommended, and whose purposes it would answer. But it is not an idea which this country
will endure." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1800. ME 10:148
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"I am for encouraging the
progress of science in all its branches, and not for raising a hue and cry against the
sacred name of philosophy; for awing the human mind by stories of raw-head and bloody
bones to a distrust of its own vision, and to repose implicitly on that of others; to go
backwards instead of forwards to look for improvement; to believe that government,
religion, morality and every other science were in the highest perfection in the ages of
the darkest ignorance, and that nothing can ever be decided more perfect than what was
established by our forefathers." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78
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The Advance of Truth and Science
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"I am not myself apt to be
alarmed at innovations recommended by reason. That dread belongs to those whose interests
or prejudices shrink from the advance of truth and science." --Thomas Jefferson to
John Manners, 1814. ME 14:103
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"Where thought is free in
its range, we need never fear to hazard what is good in itself." --Thomas Jefferson
to Mr. Olgilvie, 1811. ME 13:68
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"One of the questions... on
which our parties took different sides was on the improvability of the human mind in
science, in ethics, in government, etc. Those who advocated reformation of institutions
pari
passu
with the progress of science maintained that no definite limits could be
assigned to that progress. The enemies of reform, on the other hand, denied improvement
and advocated steady adherence to the principles, practices and institutions of our
fathers, which they represented as the consummation of wisdom and acme of excellence,
beyond which the human mind could never advance... [They predicted that] freedom of
inquiry... will produce nothing more worthy of transmission to posterity than the
principles, institutions and systems of education received from their ancestors... [But
we] possess... too much science not to see how much is still ahead of [us], unexplained
and unexplored. [Our] own consciousness must place [us] as far before our ancestors as in
the rear of our posterity." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. (*) ME 13:254
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"What an effort... of
bigotry in politics and religion have we gone through! The barbarians really flattered
themselves they should be able to bring back the times of Vandalism, when ignorance put
everything into the hands of power and priestcraft. All advances in science were
proscribed as innovations. They pretended to praise and encourage education, but it was to
be the education of our ancestors. We were to look backwards, not forwards, for
improvement." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1801. ME 10:228
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"I join [with others] in
branding as cowardly the idea that the human mind is incapable of further advance. This is
precisely the doctrine which the present despots of the earth are inculcating and their
friends here re-echoing and applying especially to religion and politics: 'that it is not
probable that anything better will be discovered than what was known to our fathers.' We
are to look backwards, then, and not forwards for the improvement of science and to find
it amidst feudal barbarisms and the fires of Spital-fields. But thank heaven the American
mind is already too much opened to listen to these impostures; and while the art of
printing is left to us, science can never be retrograde. What is once acquired of real
knowledge can never be lost." --Thomas Jefferson to William Green Munford, 1799.
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| Reason, Truth and Government |
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"It is error alone which
needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." --Thomas Jefferson:
Notes on Virginia Q.XVII, 1782. ME 2:222
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"Ignorance and bigotry, like
other insanities, are incapable of self-government." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette,
1817. ME 15:116
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"I am... against all
violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or
criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents."
--Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78
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"Every man's reason [is] his
own rightful umpire. This principle, with that of acquiescence in the will of the
majority, will preserve us free and prosperous as long as they are sacredly
observed." --Thomas Jefferson to John F. Watson, 1814. ME 14:136
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"I hold it... certain, that
to open the doors of truth and to fortify the habit of testing everything by reason are
the most effectual manacles we can rivet on the hands of our successors to prevent their
manacling the people with their own consent." --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804.
ME 11:34
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"Nor was it uninteresting to
the world that an experiment should be fairly and fully made whether freedom of
discussion, unaided by power, is not sufficient for the propagation and protection of
truth: whether a government conducting itself in the true spirit of its constitution with
zeal and purity and doing no act which it would be unwilling the whole world should
witness can be written down by falsehood and defamation. The experiment has been tried;
[we] have witnessed the scene; our fellow citizens have looked on, cool and collected.
They saw the latent source from which these outrages proceeded; they gathered around their
public functionaries, and when the Constitution called them to the decision by suffrage,
they pronounced their verdict, honorable to those who had served them and consolatory to
the friend of man who believes he may be intrusted with his own affairs." --Thomas
Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:381
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"If virtuous, [the
government] need not fear the fair operation of attack and defense. Nature has given to
man no other means of sifting the truth, either in religion, law, or politics."
--Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1792. ME 8:406
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"The Indian chief said he
did not go to war for every petty injury by itself, but put it into his pouch, and when
that was full, he then made war. Thank Heaven, we have provided a more peaceable and
rational mode of redress." --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:446
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"We shall have our follies
without doubt. Some one or more of them will always be afloat. But ours will be the
follies of enthusiasm, not of bigotry, not of Jesuitism. Bigotry is the disease of
ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free
discussion are the antidotes of both. We are destined to be a barrier against the return
of ignorance and barbarism." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1816. ME 15:58
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"[Let us] go on in doing
with [the] pen what in other times was done with the sword, [and] show that reformation is
more practicable by operating on the mind than on the body of man." --Thomas
Jefferson to Thomas Paine, 1792. FE 6:88
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"If there be any among us
who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand
undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where
reason is left free to combat it." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801. ME 3:319
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| ME, FE = Memorial Edition, Ford Edition. |
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