Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jeffersonwas an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. He was elected the second Vice President of the United States, serving under John Adams and in 1800 was elected the third President. Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, which motivated American colonists to break from Great Britain and form a new nation. He produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national level...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionUS President
Date of Birth13 April 1743
CityShadwell, VA
CountryUnited States of America
Every experience deeply felt in life needs to be passed along. Wheather it be through words and music, chiseled in stone, painted with a brush, or sewn with a needle, it is a way of reaching for immortality.
The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticism, fancies, and falsehoods.
I do verily believe that a single, consolidated government would become the most corrupt government on the earth.
A Man's management of his own purse speaks volumes about character
The States should be watchful to note every material usurpation on their rights; to denounce them as they occur in the most peremptory terms; to protest against them as wrongs to which our present submission shall be considered, not as acknowledgments or precedents of rights, but as a temporary yielding to the lesser evil, until their accumulation shall overweigh that of separation.
The present generation has the same right of self-government which the past one has exercised for itself.
My principles, and those always received by the republicans, do not admit to removing any person from office merely for a difference of political opinion. Malversations in office, and the exerting of official influence to control the freedom of election are good causes for removal.
Debt and revolution are inseparable as cause and effect.
We may say with truth and meaning, that governments are more or less republican, as they have more or less of the element of popular election and control in their composition; and believing as I do, that the mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights and especially that the evils flowing from the duperies of the people are less injurious than those from the egoism of their agents, I am a friend to that composition of government which has in it the most of this ingredient.
It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power is independent of the nation.
The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It had only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially republican.
My most earnest wish is to see the republican element of popular control pushed to the maximum of its practicable exercise. I shall then believe that our government may be pure and perpetual.
The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism...
I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army. They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct themselves. The people are the only censors of their governors; and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution.