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Every people may establish what form of government they please, and change it as they please, the will of the nation being the only thing essential.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is important to strengthen the State governments; and as this cannot be done by any change in the Federal Constitution (for the preservation of that is all we need contend for), it must be done by the States themselves, erecting such barriers at the constitutional line as cannot be surmounted either by themselves or by the General Government. The only barrier in their power is a wise government. A weak one will lose ground in every contest.
Thomas Jefferson
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The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.
Thomas Jefferson
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I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas Jefferson
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Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government. They receive it with their being from the hand of nature. Individuals exercise it by their single will; collections of men by that of their majority; for the law of the majority is the natural law of every society of men.
Thomas Jefferson
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No one, I hope, can doubt my wish to see... all mankind exercising self-government, and capable of exercising it. But the question is not what we wish, but what is practicable.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power is independent of the nation.
Thomas Jefferson
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The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism...
Thomas Jefferson
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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
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I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.
Thomas Jefferson
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But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Thomas Jefferson
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A government regulating itself by what is wise and just for the many, uninfluenced by the local and selfish views of the few who direct their affairs, has not been seen, perhaps, on earth. Or if it existed for a moment at the birth of ours, it would not be easy to fix the term of its continuance. Still, I believe it does exist here in a greater degree than anywhere else; and for its growth and continuance... I offer sincere prayers.
Thomas Jefferson
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Resolved [...] that it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights; that confidence is every where the parent of despotism; free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power; that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no farther, our confidence may go; [...]. In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson
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The mother principle [is] that 'governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.'.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Thomas Jefferson
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I rejoice when I hear of young men of virtue and talents, worthy to receive and likely to preserve the splendid inheritance of self- government, which we have acquired and shaped for them.
Thomas Jefferson
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They are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes.
Thomas Jefferson
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Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government.
Thomas Jefferson
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It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law.
Thomas Jefferson
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The government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers.
Thomas Jefferson
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The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.
Thomas Jefferson
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But inequality of representation in both Houses of our legislature, is not the only republican heresy in this first essay of our revolutionary patriots at forming a constitution. For let it be agreed that a government is republican in proportion as every member composing it has his equal voice in the direction of its concerns (not indeed in person, which would be impracticable beyond the limits of a city, or small township, but) by representatives chosen by himself, and responsible to him at short periods, and let us bring to the test of this canon every branch of our constitution.
Thomas Jefferson
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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
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The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.
Thomas Jefferson
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I believe the states can best govern our home concerns and the federal government our foreign ones.
Thomas Jefferson
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Quote of the day
Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.
Faith Baldwin
Thomas Jefferson
Creative Commons
Born:
April 13, 1743
Died:
July 4, 1826
(aged 83)
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