I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between *economy and liberty* or *profusion and servitude*. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, ... [we] must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, [and] give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow sufferers.... This example reads to us the salutary lesson that private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins indeed the *hellum omnium in omnia* which some philosophers, observing [it] to be so general in this world, have mistaken ... for the natural instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.

Source: Thomas Jefferson
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 25:39

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The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

Source: Thomas Jefferson

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The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts as are only injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Source: Thomas Jefferson
“Notes on Virginia, Jefferson the President: First Term 1801-1805,”
Dumas Malon, Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1970, p. 191

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History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.

Source: Thomas Jefferson

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

Source: Thomas Jefferson

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It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others.

Source: Thomas Jefferson

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An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental.

Source: Thomas Jefferson

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If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering.

Source: Daniel Webster

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Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

Source: Benjamin Franklin

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