News

The usurpation of all rights

7/31/2014

"I see,... and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power... It is but too evident that the three ruling branches of [the Federal government] are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic."

-- Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1825.

Eternal hostility against tyranny

2/12/2014

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny."

--Thomas Jefferson

Every generation must pay its own debts

12/28/2013

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes."

-- Thomas Jefferson

Too much machinery of government

12/28/2013

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Ludlow, 1824

Why citizens must know history

12/16/2013

"History by apprising [citizens] of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views."

-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781

Violations of the first principle of association

11/25/2013

"To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, 1816

Legitimate powers of Congress

11/12/2013

“With respect to the two words ‘general welfare’, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” “If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.” “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined . . . to be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce." "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

-- James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution, fourth U.S. President

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”

-- Thomas Jefferson, third U.S. President

“Mr. Speaker: I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member on this floor knows it. We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money.”

-- Congressman Davy Crockett

“I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity.”

-- President Franklin Pierce

Self-government is the prerequisite for government

11/6/2013

Patriot Post

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?"

-- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801

Thomas Jefferson: "Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them"

9/24/2012

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please...Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."

-- Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on a National Bank, 1791

Thomas Jefferson: "Bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution"

8/4/2012

"[I]n 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, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798

Thomas Jefferson: The manners and spirit of a people

7/24/2012

"It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution."

-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the Virginia Query 19, 1781

Thomas Jefferson: "The steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we may safely moor"

7/5/2012

"The steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we may safely moor; and notwithstanding the efforts of the papers to disseminate early discontents, I expect that a just, dispassionate and steady conduct, will at length rally to a proper system the great body of our country. Unequivocal in principle, reasonable in manner, we shall be able I hope to do a great deal of good to the cause of freedom and harmony."

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry, 1801

Cesare Beccaria on laws that forbid the carrying of arms

6/27/2012

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

-- Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment, quoted by Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book

Thomas Jefferson on the prevention of nanny government

6/15/2012

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy."

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, 1802

What would Thomas Jefferson think now?

6/14/2012

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Ludlow, 1824

Thomas Jefferson: "Lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers"

6/7/2012

"It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It [the Constitution] was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."

-- Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on a National Bank, 1791

Thomas Jefferson:The licentious press

5/4/2012

"During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety."

--Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, 1805

Thomas Jefferson: "A favored few booted and spurred"

5/3/2012

"All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride legitimately, by the grace of God."

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger C. Weightman, 1826

Thomas Jefferson: The will of the majority, right, equal law, equal protection

4/30/2012

"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."

-- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801

Thomas Jefferson: "Dependence begets subservience"

4/25/2012

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."

-- Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson: The tendency of all human goverments is the compromise of principle

4/23/2012

"And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for the second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering."

-- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Samuel Kercheval, Monticello, July 12, 1816

Thomas Jefferson: The people's regular control over their agents

4/23/2012

"If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interests require."

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, 1816

Thomas Jefferson: Some things hit home at election time

4/16/2012

"Excessive taxation ... will carry reason and reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election."

-- Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson: Power must be restrained by law

4/3/2012

"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

Thomas Jefferson: The surrender of reason

4/2/2012

"Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Smith, 1822

'Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.'

Tom Hoefling on Government:

"Just as 'good fences make for good neighbors,' good government is mainly about knowing where the legitimate boundaries are, and having the courage to defend those borders forcefully. This is true in terms of the defense of our territory, our security, and our national sovereignty, but it also applies to the sworn duty of all of those in government to equally protect the God-given, unalienable rights of each individual person, from their creation onward, their sacred obligation to stay well within the enumerated powers of our constitutions, and of the role legitimate government must play in balancing the competing rights and interests of the people, in order to establish justice."