|
Political Parties
|
| |
|
In a free society, differences of
political sentiment result in different political parties. These sentiments resolve
themselves naturally into two basic parties: the authoritarian (or monarchist, tory, etc.)
that favors government that controls the people, and the democratic (or republican,
liberal, etc.) that favors government controlled by the people. The body of the nation
chooses a path that is mapped by one or the other of these parties.
|
| |
| |
 |
| |
| |
|
"In every free and
deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent
dissensions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other
for a longer or shorter time." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798. ME 10:45
|
| |
|
"In an absolute government
there can be no... equiponderant parties. The despot is the government. His power
suppressing all opposition, maintains his ministers firm in their places. What he has
contracted, therefore, through them, he has the power to observe with good faith; and he
identifies his own honor and faith with that of his nation." --Thomas Jefferson to
John Langdon, 1810. ME 12:377
|
| |
|
"Warring against [the
principles] of the people,... there is no length to which [the delusion of the people] may
not be pushed by a party in possession of the revenues and the legal authorities of the
United States, for a short time indeed, but yet long enough to admit much particular
mischief. There is no event, therefore, however atrocious which may not be expected."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Smith, 1798. (*) ME 10:56
|
| |
|
"It is the steady abuse of
power in other governments which renders that of opposition always the popular
party." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1818. FE 10:106
|
| |
|
The Basic Differences Between Parties
|
| |
"Men by their constitutions
are naturally divided into two parties:
1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and
wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.
2. Those who
identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as
the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests.
In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think,
speak, and write, they will declare themselves.
Call them, therefore, Liberals and
Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats
and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue
the same object. The last one of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the
essence of all." --Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 1824. ME 16:73
|
| |
|
"Both of our political
parties, at least the honest portion of them, agree conscientiously in the same object:
the public good; but they differ essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that
good. One side believes it best done by one composition of the governing powers, the other
by a different one. One fears most the ignorance of the people; the other the selfishness
of rulers independent of them. Which is right, time and experience will prove. We think
that one side of this experiment has been long enough tried and proved not to promote the
good of the many, and that the other has not been fairly and sufficiently tried. Our
opponents think the reverse. With whichever opinion the body of the nation concurs, that
must prevail." --Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:52
|
| |
|
"Men have differed in
opinion and been divided into parties by these opinions from the first origin of
societies, and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to
speak. The same political parties which now agitate the U.S. have existed through all
time. Whether the power of the people or that of the [aristocracy] should prevail were
questions which kept the states of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions, as they now
schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot.
And in fact the terms of Whig and Tory belong to natural as well as to civil history. They
denote the temper and constitution of mind of different individuals." --Thomas
Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:279
|
| |
|
"The division into Whig and
Tory is founded in the nature of man; the weakly and nerveless, the rich and the corrupt,
seeing more safety and accessibility in a strong executive; the healthy, firm, and
virtuous, feeling confidence in their physical and moral resources, and willing to part
with only so much power as is necessary for their good government; and, therefore, to
retain the rest in the hands of the many, the division will substantially be into Whig and
Tory." --Thomas Jefferson to Joel Barlow, 1802. ME 10:310
|
| |
|
"The parties of Whig and
Tory are those of nature. They exist in all countries, whether called by these names or by
those of Aristocrats and Democrats, Cote Droite and Cote Gauche, Ultras and Radicals,
Serviles and Liberals. The sickly, weakly, timid man fears the people, and is a Tory by
nature. The healthy, strong and bold cherishes them, and is formed a Whig by nature."
--Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:492
|
| |
|
"Nature has made some men
monarchists and tories by their constitution, and some, of course, there always will
be." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1817. ME 15:135
|
| |
|
"The common division of Whig
and Tory... is the most salutary of all divisions and ought, therefore, to be fostered
instead of being amalgamated; for take away this, and some more dangerous principle of
division will take its place." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1825. ME 16:96
|
| |
|
"I consider the party
division of Whig and Tory the most wholesome which can exist in any government, and well
worthy of being nourished, to keep out those of a more dangerous character." --Thomas
Jefferson to William T. Barry, 1822. ME 15:388
|
| |
|
"To me... it appears that
there have been differences of opinion and party differences, from the first establishment
of government to the present day, and on the same question which now divides our own
country; that these will continue through all future time; that every one takes his side
in favor of the many, or of the few, according to his constitution, and the circumstances
in which he is placed... that as we judge between the Claudii and the Gracchi, the
Wentworths and the Hampdens of past ages, so of those among us whose names may happen to
be remembered for awhile, the next generations will judge favorably or unfavorably
according to the complexion of individual minds and the side they shall themselves have
taken; that nothing new can be added to what has been said by others and will be said in
every age in support of the conflicting opinions on government; and that wisdom and duty
dictate an humble resignation to the verdict of our future peers." --Thomas Jefferson
to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:283
|
| |
|
"Wherever there are men,
there will be parties; and wherever there are free men they will make themselves heard.
Those of firm health and spirits are unwilling to cede more of their liberty than is
necessary to preserve order; those of feeble constitutions will wish to see one strong arm
able to protect them from the many. These are the Whigs and Tories of nature. These mutual
jealousies produce mutual security; and while the laws shall be obeyed, all will be safe.
He alone is your enemy who disobeys them." --Thomas Jefferson: Misc. Notes, 1801? FE
8:1
|
| |
|
"The Tories are for
strengthening the Executive and General Government; the Whigs cherish the representative
branch and the rights reserved by the States as the bulwark against consolidation, which
must immediately generate monarchy." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:493
|
| |
|
"I had always expected that
when the republicans should have put down all things under their feet, they would
schismatize among themselves. I always expected, too, that whatever names the parties
might bear, the real division would be into moderate and ardent republicanism. In this
division there is no great evil -- not even if the minority obtain the ascendency by the
accession of federal votes to their candidate; because this gives us one shade only,
instead of another, of republicanism. It is to be considered as apostasy only when they
purchase the votes of federalists, with a participation in honor and power." --Thomas
Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1807. ME 11:265
|
| |
|
"The duty of an upright
administration is to pursue its course steadily, to know nothing of these family
dissensions, and to cherish the good principles of both parties." --Thomas Jefferson
to George Logan, 1805. ME 11:71
|
| |
|
The Utility of Party Divisions
|
| |
|
"I am no believer in the
amalgamation of parties, nor do I consider it as either desirable or useful for the
public; but only that, like religious differences, a difference in politics should never
be permitted to enter into social intercourse or to disturb its friendships, its charities
or justice. In that form, they are censors of the conduct of each other and useful
watchmen for the public." --Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 1824. ME 16:73
|
| |
|
"It would not be for the
public good to have [a majority in Congress of one party] greater [than] two to one."
--Thomas Jefferson Joel Barlow, 1802. (*) ME 10:319
|
| |
|
"A respectable minority [in
Congress] is useful as censors." --Thomas Jefferson to Joel Barlow, 1802. ME 10:319
|
| |
|
"[Those] 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
13:21
|
| |
|
Maintaining Union Amid Party Differences
|
| |
|
"Perhaps this party division
is necessary to induce each to watch and delate to the people the proceedings of the
other. But if on a temporary superiority of the one party the other is to resort to a
scission of the Union, no federal government can ever exist." --Thomas Jefferson to
John Taylor, 1798. ME 10:45
|
| |
|
"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
|
| |
|
"If we keep together we
shall be safe, and when error is so apparent as to become visible to the majority, they
will correct it." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas W. Maury, 1816. ME 18:291
|
| |
|
"Who can say what would be
the evils of a scission, and when and where they would end? Better keep together as we
are, haul off from Europe as soon as we can and from all attachments to any portions of
it; and if they show their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the
happiest situation in which we can exist." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798.
ME 10:46
|
| |
|
Political Tolerance and Harmony
|
| |
|
"The greatest good we can do
our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people." --Thomas
Jefferson to John Dickinson, 1801. FE 8:76
|
| |
|
"Let us restore to social
intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but
dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious
intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we
countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and
bloody persecutions." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801. ME 3:318
|
| |
|
"To restore... harmony,...
to render us again one people acting as one nation should be the object of every man
really a patriot." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas McKean, 1801. FE 8:78
|
| |
|
"It will be a great blessing
to our country if we can once more restore harmony and social love among its citizens. I
confess, as to myself, it is almost the first object of my heart, and one to which I would
sacrifice everything but principle." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1801. ME
10:253
|
| |
|
"If we move in mass, be it
ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone
pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now
barely hold us in check." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1811. ME 13:29
|
| |
|
"If we schismatize on either
men or measures, if we do not act in phalanx, as when we rescued [our country] from the
satellites of monarchism, I will not say our party, the term is false and
degrading, but our nation will be undone. For the republicans are the nation."
--Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1811. ME 13:28
|
|
| |
|
"I never submitted the whole
system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in
philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself.
Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to
heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis
Hopkinson, 1789. ME 7:300
|
| |
|
"Were parties here divided
merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a
reasonable or moral man." --Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795. ME 9:317
|
| |
|
Substantial Differences of Principle
|
| |
|
"Where the principle of
difference [between political parties] is as substantial and as strongly pronounced as
between the republicans and the monocrats of our country, I hold it as honorable to take a
firm and decided part and as immoral to pursue a middle line, as between the parties of
honest men and rogues, into which every country is divided." --Thomas Jefferson to
William Branch Giles, 1795. ME 9:317
|
| |
|
"That each party endeavors
to get into the administration of the government and exclude the other from power is true,
and may be stated as a motive of action: but this is only secondary; the primary motive
being a real and radical difference of political principle. I sincerely wish our
differences were but personally who should govern, and that the principles of our
Constitution were those of both parties. Unfortunately, it is otherwise; and the question
of preference between monarchy and republicanism, which has so long divided mankind
elsewhere, threatens a permanent division here." --Thomas Jefferson to John Melish,
1813. ME 13:208
|
| |
|
"The denunciation of the
democratic societies, [whose avowed object is the nourishment of the republican principles
of our Constitution,] is one of the extraordinary acts of boldness of which we have seen
so many from the faction of monocrats,... [and is] an attack on the freedom of discussion,
the freedom of writing, printing and publishing." --Thomas Jefferson to James
Madison, 1794. ME 9:293
|
| |
|
"I should suspect error
where the [monocrats] found no fault. The buzzard feeds on carrion only." --Thomas
Jefferson to Barnabas Bidwell, 1806. (*) ME 11:115
|
| |
|
"The consolidation of our
fellow-citizens in general is the great object we ought to keep in view, and that being
once obtained, while we associate with us in affairs, to a certain degree, the federal
sect of republicans, we must strip of all the means of influence the... monocrats in every
part of the Union." --Thomas Jefferson to Levi Lincoln, 1801. ME 10:263
|
| |
|
"[Those] quondam leaders
[who cover] under [a] mask... hearts devoted to monarchy... have a right to tolerance, but
neither to confidence nor power." --Thomas Jefferson to John Dickinson, 1801. (*) FE
8:76
|
| |
|
"Amiable monarchists are not
safe subjects of republican confidence." --Thomas Jefferson to Levi Lincoln, 1801. ME
10:264
|
| |
|
"In appointments to office
the government refuses to know any difference between descriptions of republicans [as to
their politics], all of whom are in principle, and co-operate, with the government."
--Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1808. ME 12:159
|
| Political Enemies |
| |
|
"I suppose, indeed, that in
public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has
energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from
those of adverse principles." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard M. Johnson, 1808. ME 12:9
|
| |
|
"Men of energy of character
must have enemies; because there are two sides to every question, and taking one with
decision, and acting on it with effect, those who take the other will of course be hostile
in proportion as they feel that effect." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1817. ME
15:109
|
| |
|
"Dr. Franklin had many
political enemies, as every character must, which, with decision enough to have opinions,
has energy and talent to give them effect on the feelings of the adversary opinion."
--Thomas Jefferson to Robert Walsh, 1818. ME 15:175
|
| |
|
"It has been a source of
great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality
to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the
person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions." --Thomas Jefferson to
Richard M. Johnson, 1808. ME 12:9
|
| |
|
"An enemy generally says and
believes what he wishes." --Thomas Jefferson to C. W. F. Dumas, 1788. Papers, 12:695
|
| |
|
"With those who wish to
think amiss of me, I have learned to be perfectly indifferent; but where I know a mind to
be ingenuous, and to need only truth to set it to rights, I cannot be as passive."
--Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:49
|
| |
|
ME, FE = Memorial Edition, Ford Edition.
|
| |
| |
