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Founders' Quote Database

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Lafayette — 1823
Category: Taxation
A rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive.

Thomas Jefferson

Rights of British America — 1774
Category: Rights
A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to John Cartwright — 1824
Category: Rights
Nothing...is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Samuel Adams Wells — 1819
Category: Rights
The Declaration of Independence...[is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.

Thomas Jefferson

Rights of British America — 1774
Category: Rights
The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Wilson Nicholas — 1803
Category: Constitutional Interpretation
Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to William Johnson — 1823
Category: Constitutional Interpretation
Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Mesrs. Eddy, Russel, Thurber, Wheaton and Smith — 1801
Category: Constitutional Interpretation
The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption - a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated, not those who opposed it, and who opposed it merely lest the construction should be applied which they denounced as possible.

Thomas Jefferson

Opinion on National Bank — 1791
Category: Constitutional Interpretation
They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please...Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to John Adams — 1817
Category: History
A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Maria Cosway — 1786
Category: Government
If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Haman's.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours — 1813
Category: The People
[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to John Cartwright — 1824
Category: The People
The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent, or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to William Johnson — 1823
Category: The People
The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Richard Rush — 1820
Category: Liberty
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to William Stephens Smith — 1787
Category: Liberty
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

letter to Edward Rutledge — 1788
Category: Virtue
My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to John Sinclair — 1791
Category: Advice
It is a happy circumstance in human affairs that evils which are not cured in one way will cure themselves in some other.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Elbridge Gerry — 1801
Category: America
The steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we may safely moor; and notwithstanding the efforts of the papers to disseminate early discontents, I expect that a just, dispassionate and steady conduct, will at length rally to a proper system the great body of our country. Unequivocal in principle, reasonable in manner, we shall be able I hope to do a great deal of good to the cause of freedom & harmony.

Thomas Jefferson

on George Washington in a letter to William Branch Giles — 1795
Category: Founders on Founders
[T]he President, who errs as other men do, but errs with integrity.

Thomas Jefferson

on George Washington in a letter to Dr. Walter Jones — 1814
Category: Founders on Founders
His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man.

Thomas Jefferson

on George Washington in a letter to Dr. Walter Jones — 1814
Category: Founders on Founders
On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance.

Thomas Jefferson

Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank — 1791
Category: Federalism
I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition.

Thomas Jefferson

on George Washington in a letter to Dr. Walter Jones — 1814
Category: Founders on Founders
Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going through with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed.

Thomas Jefferson

on George Washington in a letter to Dr. Walter Jones — 1814
Category: Founders on Founders
His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder

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“The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counselors. The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.” —Thomas Jefferson (1775)

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