Author: Thomas Jefferson

“I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.”

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

“At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous.”

“We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a feather bed.”

“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, … Continue reading →

“The republic will cease to exist when Government takes from those who are industrious and gives to those who refuse to work.”

“On every unauthoritative exercise of power by the legislature must the people rise in rebellion or their silence be construed into a surrender of that power to them? If so, how many rebellions should we have had already?”

“Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

“Let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

“Power is not alluring to pure minds.”