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Public Works & Public Assistance
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Public works undertaken by the
national government are restricted by the concept of "limited government." That
term means, however, government LIMITED BY THE CONSTITUTION, not government that is
restricted on principle from doing any sort of public works. If Congress were to have
additional powers to initiate programs of public works which were not granted by the
Constitution, then that document should be amended to grant those powers. The national
government will leave to the states most domestic concerns affecting their own citizens.
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"A people, occupied as we
are, in opening rivers, digging navigable canals, making roads, building public schools,
establishing academies, erecting busts and statues to our great men, protecting religious
freedom, abolishing sanguinary punishments, reforming and improving our laws in general...
--these are... the occupations of a people at their ease." --Thomas Jefferson to
Maria Cosway, 1786. ME 5:438
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"A most powerful objection
always arises to propositions of [public works]. It is that public undertakings are
carelessly managed and much money spent to little purpose." --Thomas Jefferson to
George Washington, 1784. Papers 7:27
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"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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"I view [a proposition
respecting post roads] as a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to
members of Congress and their friends, and a bottomless abyss of public money. You will
begin by only appropriating the surplus of the post office revenues; but the other
revenues will soon be called into their aid, and it will be a source of eternal scramble
among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State; and they will always
get most who are meanest. We have thought, hitherto, that the roads of a State could not
be so well administered even by the State legislature as by the magistracy of the county,
on the spot. How will they be when a member of New Hampshire is to mark out a road for
Georgia? Does the power to establish post roads given you by the Constitution mean
that you shall make the roads, or only select from those already made, those
on which there shall be a post? If the term be equivocal (and I really do not think it
so), which is the safest construction? That which permits a majority of Congress to go to
cutting down mountains and bridging of rivers, or the other, which if too restricted may
be referred to the States for amendment, securing still due measures and proportion among
us, and providing some means of information to the members of Congress tantamount to that
ocular inspection, which, even in our county determinations, the magistrate finds cannot
be supplied by any other evidence?" --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1796. ME
9:324
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"The same prudence which in
private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in
the disposition of the public moneys. It is not enough that an individual and an unknown
one says and even thinks he has made a discovery of [great] magnitude... Not only
explanation, but the actual experiment must be required before we can cease to doubt
whether the inventor is not deceived by some false or imperfect view of his subject."
--Thomas Jefferson to Shelton Gilliam, 1808. ME 12:73
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"The fondest wish of my
heart ever was that the surplus portion of [those] taxes destined for the payment of that
debt [contracted in the Revolutionary war] should, when that object was accomplished, be
continued by annual or biennial re-enactments and applied in time of peace to the
improvement of our country by canals, roads and useful institutions, literary or others;
and in time of war to the maintenance of the war." --Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles
Eppes, 1813. ME 13:354
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"The probable accumulation
of the surpluses of revenue beyond what can be applied to the payment of the public
debt... merits the consideration of Congress. Shall it lie unproductive in the public
vaults? Shall the revenue be reduced? Or shall it rather be appropriated to the
improvements of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great foundations of
prosperity and union, under the powers which Congress may already possess, or such
amendment of the Constitution as may be approved by the States? While uncertain of the
course of things, the time may be advantageously employed in the obtaining the powers
necessary for a system of improvement, should that be thought best." --Thomas
Jefferson: 8th Annual Message, 1808. ME 3:484
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"For authority to apply the
surplus [of taxes] to objects of improvement, an amendment of the Constitution would have
been necessary." --Thomas Jefferson to John W. Eppes, 1813. ME 13:354
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"I experience great
satisfaction at seeing my country proceed to facilitate the intercommunications of its
several parts, by opening rivers, canals and roads. How much more rational is this
disposal of public money, than that of waging war." --Thomas Jefferson to James Ross,
1786. ME 5:320
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"We consider the employment
of the contributions which our citizens can spare, after feeding, and clothing, and
lodging themselves comfortably, as more useful, more moral, and even more splendid, than
that preferred by Europe, of destroying human life, labor and happiness." --Thomas
Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1817. ME 15:128
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Regulations for the Public
Good
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"So careful is the law [in
England] against permitting a deterioration of the land, that though it will permit such
improvement in the same line, as manuring arable lands, leading water into pasture
lands, etc., yet it will not permit improvements in a different line, such as
erecting buildings, converting pasture into arable, etc., lest this should lead to a
deterioration. Hence we might argue in Virginia, that though the cutting down of forest in
Virginia is, in our husbandry, rather an improvement generally, yet it is not so always,
and therefore it is safer never to admit it." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1792.
ME 8:384
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"The General Government of
the United States has considered it their duty and interest to extend their care and
patronage over the Indian tribes within their limits, and to endeavor to render them
friends, and in time perhaps useful members of the nation. Perceiving the injurious
effects produced by their inordinate use of spirituous liquors, they passed laws
authorizing measures against the vending or distributing such liquors among them. Their
introduction by traders was accordingly prohibited, and for some time was attended with
the best effects." --Thomas Jefferson to [State Governor], 1808.
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"How is a taste in [the]
beautiful art [of architecture] to be formed in our countrymen unless we avail ourselves
of every occasion when public buildings are to be erected of presenting to them models for
their study and imitation?" --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785. ME 5:136,
Papers 8:535
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"I am an enthusiast on the
subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is
to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them
the respect of the world, and procure them its praise." --Thomas Jefferson to James
Madison, 1785. ME 5:137, Papers 8:535
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"My zealous good wishes...
[are] that, embellishing with taste a country already overflowing with the useful
productions, [the society of artists of the United States] may be able to give an innocent
and pleasing direction to accumulations of wealth, which would otherwise be employed in
the nourishment of coarse and vicious habits." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Sully,
1812. ME 13:120
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"It is a duty certainly to
give our sparings to those who want; but to see also that they are faithfully distributed
and duly apportioned to the respective wants of those receivers. And why give through
agents whom we know not, to persons whom we know not, and in countries from which we get
no account, when we can do it at short hand to objects under our eye, through agents we
know and to supply wants we see?" --Thomas Jefferson to Michael Megear, 1823. ME
15:434
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"If each portion of the
[residents of a] State... will apply its aids and its attentions exclusively to those
nearest around them, all will be better taken care of. Their support, their conduct, and
the best administration of their funds, will be under the inspection and control of those
most convenient to take cognizance of them, and most interested in their prosperity."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1810. ME 12:342
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"The poor who have neither
property, friends, nor strength to labor are boarded in the houses of good farmers, to
whom a stipulated sum is annually paid. To those who are able to help themselves a little
or have friends from whom they derive some succor, inadequate however to their full
maintenance, supplementary aids are given which enable them to live comfortably in their
own houses or in the houses of their friends. Vagabonds without visible property or
vocation, are placed in work houses, where they are well clothed, fed, lodged, and made to
labor." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:184
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"With respect to marine
hospitals... such establishments have been made by the General Government in the several
States,... a portion of seaman's wages is drawn for their support, and the government
furnishes what is deficient." --Thomas Jefferson to James Ronaldson, 1813. ME 13:205
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"This world abounds indeed
with misery; to lighten its burthen, we must divide it with one another." --Thomas
Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 1786. ME 5:441
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"Among the first of
[nature's] laws, is that which bids us to succor those in distress." --Thomas
Jefferson to William Carmichael, 1790. ME 8:22
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"Though we cannot relieve
all the distressed, we should relieve as many as we can." --Thomas Jefferson to Maria
Copway, 1786. ME 5:443
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"Those who want the
dispositions to give, easily find reasons why they ought not to give." --Thomas
Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 1786. ME 5:444
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Limits of Governmental Aid and
Assistance
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"Was the government to
prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls
are now." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVII, 1782. ME 2:222
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ME, FE = Memorial Edition, Ford Edition. |
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