| The Sovereignty of the People |
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The purpose of government is to
enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the
interests of the governed, not for the governors. As Benjamin Franklin wrote, "In
free governments the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and
sovereigns." The ultimate powers in a society, therefore, rest in the people
themselves, and they should exercise those powers, either directly or through
representatives, in every way they are competent and that is practicable.
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"The whole body of the
nation is the sovereign legislative, judiciary, and executive power for itself. The
inconvenience of meeting to exercise these powers in person, and their inaptitude to
exercise them, induce them to appoint special organs to declare their legislative will, to
judge and to execute it. It is the will of the nation which makes the law obligatory; it
is their will which creates or annihilates the organ which is to declare and announce it.
They may do it by a single person, as an emperor of Russia (constituting his declarations
evidence of their will), or by a few persons, as the aristocracy of Venice, or by a
complication of councils, as in our former regal government or our present republican one.
The law being law because it is the will of the nation, is not changed by their changing
the organ through which they choose to announce their future will; no more than the acts I
have done by one attorney lose their obligation by my changing or discontinuing that
attorney." --Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Randolph, 1799. ME 10:126
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"Every nation has a right to
govern itself internally under what forms it pleases, and to change these forms at its own
will; and externally to transact business with other nations through whatever organ it
chooses, whether that be a King, Convention, Assembly, Committee, President, or whatever
it be. The only thing essential is, the will of the nation." --Thomas Jefferson to
Thomas Pinckney, 1792. ME 9:7
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"[The people] are in truth
the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government." --Thomas Jefferson to
Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1813. ME 19:197
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"[It is] the people, to whom
all authority belongs." --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821. ME 15:328
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"The constitutions of most
of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it
by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent (as in electing their
functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves in all
judiciary cases in which any fact is involved), or they may act by representatives, freely
and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they
are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom
of the press." --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:45
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"We think experience has
proved it safer for the mass of individuals composing the society to reserve to themselves
personally the exercise of all rightful powers to which they are competent and to delegate
those to which they are not competent to deputies named and removable for unfaithful
conduct by themselves immediately." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de
Nemours, 1816. ME 14:487
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"The ultimate arbiter is the
people of the Union." --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:451
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Sovereignty Unaffected by
Change in Government
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"I consider the people who
constitute a society or nation as the source of all authority in that nation; as free to
transact their common concerns by any agents they think proper; to change these agents
individually, or the organization of them in form or function whenever they please; that
all the acts done by these agents under the authority of the nation are the acts of the
nation, are obligatory on them and enure to their use, and can in no wise be annulled of
affected by any change in the form of the government or of the persons administering
it." --Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on French Treaties, 1793. ME 3:227
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"When, by the Declaration of
Independence, [the nation of Virginia] chose to abolish their former organs of declaring
their will, the acts of will already formally and constitutionally declared, remained
untouched. For the nation was not dissolved, was not annihilated; its will, therefore,
remained in full vigor; and on the establishing the new organs, first of a convention, and
afterwards a more complicated legislature, the old acts of national will continued in
force, until the nation should, by its new organs, declare its will changed."
--Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Randolph, 1799. ME 10:126
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"Louis XIV, having
established the Coutumes de Paris as the law of Louisiana, this was not changed by the
mere act of transfer; on the contrary, the laws of France continued and continues to be
the law of the land, except where specially altered by some subsequent edict of Spain or
act of Congress." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1808. ME 12:58
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"Indeed in no case are the
laws of a nation changed, of natural right, by their passage from one to another
denomination. The soil, the inhabitants, their property, and the laws by which they are
protected go together. Their laws are subject to be changed only in the case, and extent
which their new legislature shall will." --Thomas Jefferson: Batture at New Orleans,
1812. ME 18:31
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"When a question arises,
whether any particular law or appointment is still in force, we are to examine, not
whether it was pronounced by the ancient or present organ, but whether it has been at any
time revoked by the authority of the nation, expressed by the organ competent at the
time." --Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1792. ME 8:302
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The Powers of Legislation |
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"From the nature of things,
every society must at all times possess within itself the sovereign powers of
legislation." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. Papers 1:132
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"[If the] representative
houses [are dissolved,]... the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, [return] to
the people at large for their exercise." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of
Independence, 1776. ME 1:31, Papers 1:430
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"Necessities which dissolve
a government do not convey its authority to an oligarchy or a monarchy. They throw back
into the hands of the people the powers they had delegated, and leave them as individuals
to shift for themselves." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIII, 1782. ME
2:175
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"There is an error into
which most of the speculators on government have fallen, and which the well-known state of
society of our Indians ought, before now, to have corrected. In their hypothesis of the
origin of government, they suppose it to have commenced in the patriarchal or monarchical
form. Our Indians are evidently in that state of nature which has passed the association
of a single family... The Cherokees, the only tribe I know to be contemplating the
establishment of regular laws, magistrates, and government, propose a government of
representatives, elected from every town. But of all things, they least think of
subjecting themselves to the will of one man." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis W.
Gilmer, 1816. ME 15:25
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Government Receives its Powers
from the People
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"Governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." --Thomas
Jefferson: Declaration of Independence, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:429
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"I consider the source of
authority with us to be the Nation. Their will, declared through its proper organ, is
valid till revoked by their will declared through its proper organ again also."
--Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1792. ME 8:301
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"Independence of the will of
the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government." --Thomas Jefferson to
Thomas Ritchie, 1820. ME 15:298
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"What government [a nation]
can bear depends not on the state of science, however exalted, in a select band of
enlightened men, but on the condition of the general mind." --Thomas Jefferson to
Lafayette, 1817. (*) ME 15:114
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"The government of a nation
may be usurped by the forcible intrusion of an individual into the throne. But to conquer
its will so as to rest the right on that, the only legitimate basis, requires long
acquiescence and cessation of all opposition." --Thomas Jefferson to ----, 1825. ME
16:127
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The People are Capable of
Exercising Sovereign Powers
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"Independence can be trusted
nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral
law." --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819.
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"I have such reliance on the
good sense of the body of the people and the honesty of their leaders that I am not afraid
of their letting things go wrong to any length in any cause." --Thomas Jefferson to
C. W. F. Dumas, 1788. ME 6:430
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"Whenever our affairs go
obviously wrong, the good sense of the people will interpose and set them to rights."
--Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys, 1789. ME 7:322
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"Our fellow citizens have
been led hoodwinked from their principles by a most extraordinary combination of
circumstances. But the band is removed, and they now see for themselves." --Thomas
Jefferson to John Dickinson, 1801. ME 10:217
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"Reflection,... with
information, is all which our countrymen need, to bring themselves and their affairs to
rights." --Thomas Jefferson to James Lewis, Jr., 1798. ME 10:37
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"The revolution of 1800...
was as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its
form; not effected indeed by the sword, as that, but by the rational and peaceable
instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people." --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer
Roane, 1819. ME 15:212
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"There is a steady, good
sense in the Legislature, and in the body of the nation, joined with good intentions,
which will lead them to discern and to pursue the public good under all circumstances
which can arise, and... no ignis fatuus [misleading ideal] will be able to lead
them long astray." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1806. ME 11:108
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"I am sensible that there
are defects in our federal government, yet they are so much lighter than those of
monarchies, that I view them with much indulgence. I rely, too, on the good sense of the
people for remedy, whereas the evils of monarchical government are beyond remedy."
--Thomas Jefferson to David Ramsay, 1787. ME 6:226
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"Time alone [will] bring
round an order of things more correspondent to the sentiments of our constituents."
--Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798. ME 10:45
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"My confidence is that there
will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct
abuses." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81
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"Manfully maintain our good
old principle of cherishing and fortifying the rights and authorities of the people in
opposition to those who fear them, who wish to take all power from them and to transfer
all to Washington." --Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 1826. FE 10:378
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The Power of Public Opinion |
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"The force of public opinion
cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must
be submitted to." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:491
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"Ministers... cannot in any
country be uninfluenced by the voice of the people." --Thomas Jefferson to John Jay,
1786. ME 5:452
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"A court has no affections;
but those of the people whom they govern influence their decisions, even in the most
arbitrary governments." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1785. ME 5:12, Papers
8:228
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"Public opinion... [is] a
censor before which the most exalted tremble for their future as well as present
fame." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1816. ME 14:393
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"Public opinion [is the]
lord of the universe." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1820. ME 15:246
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"More attention should be
paid to the general opinion." --Thomas Jefferson to George Mason, 1791.
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"The advantage of public
opinion is like that of the weather-gauge in a naval action." --Thomas Jefferson to
James Monroe, 1815. ME 14:226
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"When public opinion
changes, it is with the rapidity of thought." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey,
1816. ME 14:382
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"The opinions and
dispositions of our people in general, which, in governments like ours, must be the
foundation of measures, will always be interesting to me." --Thomas Jefferson to
Richard Henry Lee, 1786. ME 5:294
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"Government being founded on
opinion, the opinion of the public, even when it is wrong, ought to be respected to a
certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson to Nicholas Lewis, 1791. FE 5:282
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"Opinions... constitute,
indeed, moral facts, as important as physical ones to the attention of the public
functionary." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1820. ME 15:284
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"The people cannot be all,
and always, well-informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to
the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such
misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty."
--Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:372, Papers 12:356
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"The people have a right to
petition, but not to use that right to cover calumniating insinuations." --Thomas
Jefferson to James Madison, 1808. ME 12:166
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"I like to see the people
awake and alert. The good sense of the people will soon lead them back if they have erred
in a moment of surprise." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1786.
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"What country can preserve
its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve
the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts,
pardon and pacify them." --Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME
6:373, Papers 12:356
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"Governments, wherein the
will of every one has a just influence... has its evils,... the principal of which is the
turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and
it becomes nothing. Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem. [I prefer
the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.] Even this evil is productive of good. It
prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public
affairs." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:64
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"The spirit of resistance to
government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It
will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like
a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere." --Thomas
Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1787.
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"God forbid we should ever
be twenty years without such a rebellion... We have had thirteen States independent for
eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a
half, for each State. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a
rebellion?" --Thomas Jefferson to William S. Smith, 1787. ME 6:372
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"Most codes extend their
definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish
between acts against the government, and acts against the
oppressions of the
government
. The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner
than the former, because real treasons are rare; oppressions frequent. The unsuccessful
strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all
countries." --Thomas Jefferson: Report on Spanish Convention, 1792.
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"If our country, when
pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of
its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Haman's."
--Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 1786. ME 5:444
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"The commotions that have
taken place in America, as far as they are yet known to me, offer nothing threatening.
They are a proof that the people have liberty enough, and I could not wish them less than
they have. If the happiness of the mass of the people can be secured at the expense of a
little tempest now and then, or even of a little blood, it will be a precious purchase.
'Malo libertatem periculosam quam quietem servitutem.' 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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"The tumults in America I
expected would have produced in Europe an unfavorable opinion of our political state. But
it has not. On the contrary, the small effect of these tumults seems to have given more
confidence in the firmness of our governments. The interposition of the people themselves
on the side of government has had a great effect on the opinion here [in Europe]."
--Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57
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"The late rebellion in
Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it should have done. Calculate that one
rebellion in thirteen states in the course of eleven years, is but one for each state in a
century and a half. No country should be so long without one. Nor will any degree of power
in the hands of government prevent insurrections." --Thomas Jefferson to James
Madison, 1787. ME 6:391
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"[An occasional
insurrection] will not weigh against the inconveniences of a government of force, such as
are monarchies and aristocracies." --Thomas Jefferson to T. B. Hollis, July 2, 1787.
(*) ME 6:155
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"Cherish... the spirit of
our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but
reclaim them by enlightening them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME
6:58
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"There are extraordinary
situations which require extraordinary interposition. An exasperated people who feel that
they possess power are not easily restrained within limits strictly regular."
--Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:196, Papers 1:127
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"[The] uneasiness [of the
people] has produced acts absolutely unjustifiable; but I hope they will provoke no
severities from their governments. A consciousness of those in power that their
administration of the public affairs has been honest may, perhaps, produce too great a
degree of indignation; and those characters wherein fear predominates over hope, may
apprehend too much from these instances of irregularity. They may conclude too hastily,
that nature has formed man insusceptible of any other government than that of force, a
conclusion not founded in truth nor experience." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison,
Jan. 30, 1787. ME 6:64
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"The arm of the people [is]
a machine not quite so blind as balls and bombs, but blind to a certain degree."
--Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1793. ME 9:10
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"I hold it that a little
rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as
storms are in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the
encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of
this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of
rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is medicine necessary for the sound
health of government." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:65
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"[No] degree of power in the
hands of government [will] prevent insurrections." --Thomas Jefferson to James
Madison, 1787. Papers 12:442.
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"The boisterous sea of
liberty is never without a wave." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1820. ME 15:283
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"What signify a few lives
lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the
blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." --Thomas Jefferson to
William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers 12:356
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Rebellion, Right and Wrong |
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"Whenever any form of
government becomes destructive of these ends [i.e., securing inherent and inalienable
rights, with powers derived from the consent of the governed], it is the right of the
people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on
such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their safety and happiness." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of
Independence, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:315
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"In no country on earth is
[a disposition to oppose the law by force] so impracticable as in one where every man
feels a vital interest in maintaining the authority of the laws, and instantly engages in
it as in his own personal cause." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith, 1808. ME
12:62
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"In a country whose
constitution is derived from the will of the people directly expressed by their free
suffrages, where the principal executive functionaries and those of the legislature are
renewed by them at short periods, where under the character of jurors they exercise in
person the greatest portion of the judiciary powers, where the laws are consequently so
formed and administered as to bear with equal weight and favor on all, restraining no man
in the pursuits of honest industry and securing to every one the property which that
acquires, it would not be supposed that any safeguards could be needed against
insurrection or enterprise on the public peace or authority. The laws, however, aware that
these should not be trusted to moral restraints only, have wisely provided punishments for
these crimes when committed." --Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806. ME 3:418
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"As revolutionary
instruments (when nothing but revolution will cure the evils of the State) [secret
societies] are necessary and indispensable, and the right to use them is inalienable by
the people; but to admit them as ordinary and habitual instruments as a part of the
machinery of the Constitution, would be to change that machinery by introducing moving
powers foreign to it, and to an extent depending solely on local views, and, therefore,
incalculable." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1803. FE 8:256
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"The paradox with me is how
any friend to the union of our country can, in conscience, contribute a cent to the
maintenance of anyone who perverts the sanctity of his desk to the open inculcation of
rebellion, civil war, dissolution of government, and the miseries of anarchy."
--Thomas Jefferson to William Plumer, 1815. ME 14:235
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"I acknowledge the right of
voluntary associations for laudable purposes and in moderate numbers. I acknowledge, too,
the expediency for revolutionary purposes of general associations coextensive with the
nation. But where, as in our case, no abuses call for revolution, voluntary associations
so extensive as to grapple with and control the government, should such be or become their
purpose, are dangerous machines and should be frowned down in every well regulated
government." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1822.
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"Private associations...
whose magnitude may rivalize and jeopardize the march of regular government [may become]
necessary [in] the case where the regular authorities of the government [combine] against
the rights of the people, and no means of correction [remains] to them but to organize a
collateral power which, with their support, might rescue and secure their violated rights.
But such is not the case with our government. We need hazard no collateral power which, by
a change of its original views and assumption of others we know not how virtuous or how
mischievous, would be ready organized and in force sufficient to shake the established
foundations of society and endanger its peace and the principles on which it is
based." --Thomas Jefferson to Jedediah Morse, 1822. ME 15:357
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"Military assemblies will
not only keep alive the jealousies and fears of the civil government, but give ground for
these fears and jealousies. For when men meet together, they will make business if they
have none; they will collate their grievances, some real, some imaginary, all highly
painted; they will communicate to each other the sparks of discontent; and these may
engender a flame which will consume their particular, as well as the general
happiness." --Thomas Jefferson: Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786. ME 17:90
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"Where an enterprise is
meditated by private individuals against a foreign nation in amity with the United States,
powers of prevention to a certain extent are given by the laws; would they not be as
reasonable and useful were the enterprise preparing against the United States?"
--Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806. ME 3:419
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"The framers of our
constitution certainly supposed they had guarded, as well their government against
destruction by treason, as their citizens against oppression under pretence of it; and if
these ends are not attained, it is of importance to inquire by what means, more effectual,
they may be secured." --Thomas Jefferson: 7th Annual Message, 1807. ME 3:452
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"Looking forward with
anxiety to [the] future destinies [of my fellow citizens], I trust that, in their steady
character unshaken by difficulties, in their love of liberty, obedience to law, and
support of the public authorities, I see a sure guaranty of the permanence of our
republic." --Thomas Jefferson: 8th Annual Message, 1808. ME 3:485
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ME, FE = Memorial Edition, Ford Edition.
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