United Liberty

“I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” - Thomas Jefferson

“The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in…the federal judiciiary; an irresponsible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States.” - Thomas Jefferson

“Nothing could so completely divest us of that liberty as the establishment of the opinion that the state has a perpetual; right to the services of all its members.” - Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe (1782)

“Then I say, the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course, fully and in its own right. The second generation receives it clear of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation. Then, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.” - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison (1789)

“Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.” - Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas (1803)

“By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil which no honest government should decline.” - Thomas Jefferson to Alexander Donald (1788)

“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all and always well-informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had thirteen States independent for eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each State. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon, and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” - Thomas Jefferson

“Agriculture, manufactures, commerce and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.” - Thomas Jefferson

We’ll be posting Thomas Jefferson quotes daily from April 13th, his birthday, through July 4th, the day he died.

“The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations.” — David Friedman

“You heard the mantra, ‘Tax the rich, tax the rich… We’ve done that. We’ve probably lost jobs and driven people out of the state.” - Gov. David Paterson (D-NY)

H/T: NRO