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| Moral Degeneracy |
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From experience, we know that
human beings do not always act in accordance with right and justice. Injustice in
government undermines the foundations of a society. A nation, therefore, must take
measures to encourage its members along the paths of justice and morality.
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"When [the moral
sense] is wanting, we endeavor to supply the defect by education, by appeals to reason and
calculation, by presenting to the being so unhappily conformed, other motives to do good
and to eschew evil, such as the love, or the hatred, or the rejection of those among whom
he lives, and whose society is necessary to his happiness and even existence;
demonstrations by sound calculation that honesty promotes interest in the long run; the
rewards and penalties established by the laws; and ultimately the prospects of a future
state of retribution for the evil as well as the good done while here. These are the
correctives which are supplied by education, and which exercise the functions of the
moralist, the preacher, and legislator; and they lead into a course of correct action all
those whose depravity is not too profound to be eradicated." --Thomas Jefferson to
Thomas Law, 1814. ME 14:142
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"The compulsions of the law
seem to have been provided for those only who require compulsions." --Thomas
Jefferson to Albemarle County Commissioners, 1780. Papers 15:590
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"That every man shall be
made virtuous by any process whatever is, indeed, no more to be expected than that every
tree shall be made to bear fruit, and every plant nourishment. The brier and bramble can
never become the vine and olive; but their asperities may be softened by culture, and
their properties improved to usefulness in the order and economy of the world."
--Thomas Jefferson to Cornelius Camden Blatchly, 1822. ME 15:399
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"I know but one code of
morality for man whether acting singly or collectively. He who says I will be a rogue when
I act in company with a hundred others, but an honest man when I act alone, will be
believed in the former assertion, but not in the latter." --Thomas Jefferson to James
Madison, 1789. ME 7:449, Papers 15:367
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| Counteracting Selfishness |
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"The human character, we
believe, requires in general constant and immediate control to prevent its being biased
from right by the seductions of self-love." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel
Dupont de Nemours, 1816. ME 14:489
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"Self-love... is the sole
antagonist of virtue, leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in
violation of our moral duties to others. Accordingly, it is against this enemy that are
erected the batteries of moralists and religionists, as the only obstacle to the practice
of morality. Take from man his selfish propensities, and he can have nothing to seduce him
from the practice of virtue. Or subdue those propensities by education, instruction or
restraint, and virtue remains without a competitor." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas
Law, 1814. ME 14:140
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"A regard for reputation and
the judgment of the world may sometimes be felt where conscience is dormant."
--Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825. ME 16:114
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"I fear, from the experience
of the last twenty-five years, that morals do not of necessity advance hand in hand with
the sciences." --Thomas Jefferson to M. Correa de Serra, 1815. ME 14:331
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A Nation's Abandonment of Morality
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"In every government on
earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which
cunning will discover, and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and improve."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:207
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"What institution is
insusceptible of abuse in wicked hands?" --Thomas Jefferson to L. H. Girardin, 1815.
ME 14:270
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"Mankind soon learn to make
interested uses of every right and power which they possess, or may assume." --Thomas
Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIII, 1782. ME 2:164
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"[Montesquieu wrote in
Spirit
of the Laws,
III,c.3:] 'When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those
who are disposed to receive it, and avarice possesses the whole community." --Thomas
Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.
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"Cannibals are not to be
found in the wilds of America only, but are reveling on the blood of every living
people." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Clay, 1815. ME 14:234
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"[Algernon Sidney wrote in
Discourses
Concerning Government,
Sect. II, Par. 8:] 'Those who have no sense of right, reason or
religion, have a natural propensity to make use of their strength to the destruction of
such as are weaker than they.'" --Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.
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"The nation who [has] never
admitted a chapter of morality into her political code,... [will] boldly [avow] that
whatever power [she] can make hers is hers of right." --Thomas Jefferson to John
Langdon, 1810. (*) ME 12:375
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"It was not expected in this
age, that nations so honorably distinguished by their advances in science and
civilization, would suddenly cast away the esteem they had merited from the world and,
revolting from the empire of morality, assume a character in history which all the tears
of their posterity will never wash from its pages." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to
Philadelphia Democratic Republicans, 1808. ME 16:303
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"I do not believe with the
Rochefoucaults and the Montaignes that fourteen out of fifteen men are rogues. I believe a
great abatement from that proportion may be made in favor of general honesty. But I have
always found that rogues would be uppermost, and I do not know that the proportion is too
strong for the higher orders and for those who, rising above the swinish multitude, always
contrive to nestle themselves into the places of power and profit. These rogues set out
with stealing the people's good opinion, and then steal from them the right of withdrawing
it, by contriving laws and associations against the power of the people themselves."
--Thomas Jefferson to Mann Page, 1795. ME 9:306
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"Such is the moral
construction of the world, that no national crime passes unpunished in the long run...
Were your present oppressors to reflect on the same truth, they would spare to their own
countries the penalties on their present wrongs which will be inflicted on them in future
times. The seeds of hatred and revenge which they [sow] with a large hand will not fail to
produce their fruits in time. Like their brother robbers on the highway, they suppose the
escape of the moment a final escape and deem infamy and future risk countervailed by
present gain." --Thomas Jefferson to Francois de Marbois, 1817. ME 15:130
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"Crooked schemes will end by
overwhelming their authors and coadjutors in disgrace, and... he alone who walks strict
and upright, and who, in matters of opinion, will be contented that others should be as
free as himself, and acquiesce when his opinion is fairly overruled, will attain his
object in the end." --Thomas Jefferson to Gideon Granger, 1804. ME 11:25
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"If pride of character be of
worth at any time, it is when it disarms the efforts of malice." --Thomas Jefferson
to Thomas Nelson, 1781. ME 4:364, Papers 4:677
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"There are various ways of
keeping truth out of sight." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.VI, 1782. ME
2:95
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"Truths necessary for our
own character must not be suppressed out of tenderness to its calumniators." --Thomas
Jefferson to James Madison, 1815. ME 14:291
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"In truth, I do not
recollect in all the animal kingdom a single species but man which is eternally and
systematically engaged in the destruction of its own species. What is called civilization
seems to have no other effect on him than to teach him to pursue the principle of
bellum
omnium in omnia
[war of all against all] on a larger scale, and in place of the little
contests of tribe against tribe, to engage all the quarters of the earth in the same work
of destruction. When we add to this that as to the other species of animals, the lions and
tigers are mere lambs compared with man as a destroyer, we must conclude that it is in man
alone that nature has been able to find a sufficient barrier against the too great
multiplication of other animals and of man himself, an equilibrating power against the
fecundity of generation." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1797. ME 9:360
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"When great evils happen, I
am in the habit of looking out for what good may arise from them as consolations to us,
and Providence has in fact so established the order of things, as that most evils are the
means of producing some good." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173
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| Force and Corruption |
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"I have never been able to
conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of
power over others." --Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811. ME 13:18
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"Force [is] the vital
principle and immediate parent of despotism." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural,
1801. ME 3:321
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"I know that the passions of
men will take their course, that they are not to be controlled but by despotism, and that
this melancholy truth is the pretext for despotism." --Thomas Jefferson to George
Logan, 1805. ME 11:71
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"Either force or corruption
has been the principle of every modern government." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams,
1796.
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"Force cannot change
right." --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:43
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"With the laborers of
England generally, does not the moral coercion of want subject their will as despotically
to that of their employer, as the physical constraint does the soldier, the seaman, or the
slave?" --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME 14:183
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"[When] the principle that
force is right is become the principle of the nation itself, they would not permit an
honest minister, were accident to bring such an one into power, to relax their system of
lawless piracy." --Thomas Jefferson to Caesar Rodney, 1810. (*) ME 12:358
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| The Corruption of Wealth |
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"My observations do not
enable me to say I think integrity the characteristic of wealth. In general, I believe the
decisions of the people in a body will be more honest and more disinterested than those of
wealthy men, and I can never doubt an attachment to his country in any man who has his
family and peculium [i.e., private property] in it." --Thomas Jefferson to Edmund
Pendleton, 1776. Papers 1:504
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"I may further say that I
have not observed men's honesty to increase with their riches." --Thomas Jefferson to
Jeremiah Moor, 1800. FE 7:454
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"Wealth, title, office, are
no recommendations to my friendship. On the contrary, great good qualities are requisite
to make amends for their having wealth, title, and office." --Thomas Jefferson to
Maria Cosway, 1786. ME 5:445
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"There is a natural
aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents... There is also an
artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for
with these it would belong to the first class... The artificial aristocracy is a
mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its
ascendency." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:396
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"A heavy aristocracy and
corruption are two bridles in the mouths of [a people] which will prevent them from making
any effectual efforts against their masters." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison,
1785. (*) FE 4:38, Papers 8:40
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"To detail the real evils of
aristocracy, they must be seen in Europe." --Thomas Jefferson: Answers to de Meusnier
Questions, 1786. ME 17:84
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"Generally speaking, the
proportion which the aggregate of the other classes of citizens bears in any state to that
of its husbandmen is the proportion of its unsound to its healthy parts, and is a good
enough barometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption." --Thomas Jefferson:
Notes on Virginia Q.XIX, 1782. ME 2:229
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"A due horror of the evils
which flow from these distinctions [by birth or badge] could be excited in Europe only,
where the dignity of man is lost in arbitrary distinctions, where the human species is
classed into several stages of degradation, where the many are crushed under the weight of
the few, and where the order established can present to the contemplation of a thinking
being no other picture than that of God Almighty and His angels, trampling under foot the
host of the damned." --Thomas Jefferson: Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786. ME
17:89
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Defeating the Corruptions of Wealth
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"Lay down true principles
and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of
the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people." --Thomas
Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:35
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"[Is] it best to put the
pseudo-aristoi [of wealth and birth] into a separate chamber of legislation, where they
may be hindered from doing mischief by their coordinate branches, and where, also, they
may be a protection to wealth against the agrarian and plundering enterprises of the
majority of the people? I think that to give them power in order to prevent them from
doing mischief is arming them for it, and increasing instead of remedying the evil. For if
the coordinate branches can arrest their action, so may they that of the coordinates.
Mischief may be done negatively as well as positively... Nor do I believe them necessary
to protect the wealthy; because enough of these will find their way into every branch of
the legislation to protect themselves." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME
13:397
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Governments Against the People
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"I am convinced that those
societies (as the Indians) which live without government, enjoy in their general mass an
infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments.
Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as
powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretense of governing, they
have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate...
Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can
apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on
the poor." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:58
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"The sheep are happier of
themselves than under the care of the wolves." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia
Q.XI, 1782. ME 2:129
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"[The European nations] are
nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of the labor,
property and lives of their people. On our part, never had a people so favorable a chance
of trying the opposite system, of peace and fraternity with mankind, and the direction of
all our means and faculties to the purpose of improvement instead of destruction."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1823. ME 15:436
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"How soon the labor of men
would make a paradise of the whole earth, were it not for misgovernment, and a diversion
of all his energies from their proper object -- the happiness of man -- to the selfish
interest of kings, nobles, and priests." --Thomas Jefferson to Ellen W. Coolidge,
1825. ME 18:341
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| ME, FE = Memorial Edition, Ford Edition. |
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