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
I discharge every person under punishment or prosecution under the Sedition Law, because I considered, and now consider, that law to be a nullity as absolute and palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image.
I wish I was a despot that I might save the noble, the beautiful trees that are daily falling sacrifice to the cupidity of their owners, or the necessity of the poor. The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder.
I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into it.
In a virtuous and free state, no rewards can be so pleasing to sensible minds, as those which include the approbation of our fellow citizens. My great pain is, lest my poor endeavours should fall short of the kind expectations of my country.
The banks themselves were doing business on capitals three-fourths of which were fictitious. This fictitious capital... is now to be lost, and to fall on somebody; it must take on those who have property to meet it, and probably on the less cautious part, who, not aware of the impending catastrophe, have suffered themselves to contract, or to be in debt, and must now sacrifice their property of a value many times the amount of the debt. We have been truly sowing the wind, and are now reaping the whirlwind.
God has formed us moral agents... that we may promote the happiness of those with whom He has placed us in society, by acting honestly towards all, benevolently to those who fall within our way, respecting sacredly their rights, bodily and mental, and cherishing especially their freedom of conscience, as we value our own.
We owe gratitude to France, justice to England, good will to all, and subservience to none ... it was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.
The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.
In matters of principals, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.
The best principles of our republic secure to all its citizens a perfect equality of rights.
The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.
I join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character
I hope we shall take warning from the example of England and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our Government to trial, and bid defiance to the laws of our country