Through their right of suffrage, the people exercise their sovereign power over government. If things are not going right, they can throw one set of interests out and elect another that promises a revision of the course that government has taken. -Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819
"History, in general, only informs us what bad government is." Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807.
"Our President is chosen by ourselves, directly in practice, for we vote for A as elector only on the condition he will vote for B …" -- Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816.
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."- Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801.
"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.
"Elective government [is] calculated to promote [my fellow citizens'] happiness, peculiarly adapted to their genius, habits, and situation, and the best permanent corrective of the errors or abuses of those entrusted with power." -Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Address, 1801.
"I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." - Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816.
"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.
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. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all. - "Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789."
"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.
"Conduct it ever so wisely, [the management of the War Department] will be a sacrifice of [the person accepting it]. Were an angel from heaven to undertake that office, all our miscarriages would be ascribed to him." - Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1815.
"The Greeks and Romans had no standing armies, yet they defended themselves. Their system was to make every man a soldier and oblige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared. This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so." - Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814.
"We can only be answerable for the orders we give and not for the execution. If they are disobeyed from obstinacy of spirit, or want of coercion in the laws, it is not our fault." -Thomas Jefferson to General Steuben, 1781.
"It is unfortunate that the efforts of mankind to recover the freedom of which they have been so long deprived, will be accompanied with violence, with errors, and even with crimes. But while we weep over the means, we must pray for the end." - Thomas Jefferson to Francois D'Ivernois, 1795.
"On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." -Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823
"This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force." - Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1796.
"If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence." - Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813.
"When wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality." -Thomas Jefferson to Madame de Stael, 1807.
"The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them." - Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1821.
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