GOVT 2665 - Exam 1

“I admit I saw in America more than America; it was the shape of democracy itself which I sought, its inclinations, character, prejudices, and passions; I wanted to understand it so as at least to know what we have to fear or hope therefrom”

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, “Author’s Introduction” (p. 19)

“Long before the appointed day arrives, the [presidential] election becomes the greatest, and one might say the only, affair occupying men's minds… As the election draws near, intrigues grow more active and agitation is more lively and wider spread. The citizens divide up into several camps, each of which takes its name from its candidate. The whole nation gets into a feverish state, the election is the daily theme of comment in the newspapers and private conversations, the object of every action and the subject of every thought, and the sole interest for the moment. It is true that as soon as fortune has pronounced, the ardor is dissipated, everything calms down, and the river which momentarily overflowed its banks falls back to its bed. But was it not astonishing that such a storm could have arisen?”

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America Vol 1, Pt 1, Ch 8 (p. 135)

“No novelty in the United States struck me more vividly during my stay there than the equality of conditions. It was easy to see the immense influence of this basic fact on the whole course of society. It gives particular turn to public opinion and a particular twist to the laws, new maxims to those who governed and particular habits to the governed… it creates opinions gives birth to feelings, suggests customs, and modifies whatever it did not create.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 1, ‘Author’s Introduction’ (p. 9)

“[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions."

- James Madison, Federalist Papers #10

“I came into the world at the end of a long revolution which, after having destroyed the old order, created nothing that could last. When I began my life, aristocracy was already dead, and democracy still unborn. Therefore my instinct could not lead me blindly toward one or the other…. I had no natural hatred or jealousy of the aristocracy and, since that aristocracy had been destroyed, I had no natural affection for it, for one can only be strongly attached to the living. I was near enough to know it intimately, and far enough to judge it dispassionately. I may say as much for the democratic element… In a word, I was so nicely balanced between the past and future that I did not feel instinctively drawn toward the one or the other. It required no great effort to contemplate quietly both sides.”

Tocqueville to Henry Reeve, 22 March 1837

“A great democratic revolution is taking place in our midst; everybody sees it, but by no means everybody judges it in the same way.”

“Wherever one looks one finds the same revolution taking place throughout the Christian world.”

“… effort to stop halt democracy appears as a fight against God Himself, and nations have no alternative but to acquiesce in the social state imposed by Providence.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 1, ‘Author’s Introduction’ (p. 9, 11, 12)

“This whole book has been written under the impulse of a kind of religious dread inspired by contemplation of this irresistible revolution advancing century by century over every obstacle and even now going forward amid the ruins it has itself created.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 1, ‘Author’s Introduction’ (p. 12)

“I can see the whole destiny of America contained in the first Puritan who landed on these shores, as that of the whole human race in the first man.”

Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America (p. 279)

“But what most distinguished them from all others was the very aim of their enterprise… in facing the inevitable sufferings of exile they hoped for the triumph of an idea… The immigrants, or, as they so well names themselves, the Pilgrims, belonged to that English sect whose austere principals had led them to be called Puritans. Puritanism was not just a religious doctrine; in many respects it shared the most democratic and republican theories.”

Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America (p. 36)

“Thus, in the moral world everything is classified, coordinated, foreseen, and decided in advance. In the world of politics, everything is in turmoil, contested and uncertain. In the one case obedience is passive, though voluntary; in the other there is independence, contempt of experience and jealousy of all authority. Far from harming each other, these two apparently opposed tendencies work in harmony and seem to lend mutual support… Religion is considered as the guardian of mores, and mores are regarded as the guarantee of the laws and pledge for the maintenance of freedom itself.”

Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America (p. 47)

“In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc. Having undertaken for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the First Colony in the Northern Parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together in a Civil Body Politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.”

Mayflower Compact (1620)

“To make, ordeine, and establish all manner of wholesome and reasonable orders, lawes, statutes, and ordinances, directions and instructions, not contrarie to the lawes of this our realm of England, as well for setling the forms and ceremonies of government and magistracy fit and necessary for said plantation, and the inhabitants there, and for naming and stiling of all sortes of officers, both superior and inferior, which they shall find needful for that government and plantation, and the distinguishing and setting forth of the several duties, powers, and lymytts of every such office and place.”

Royal Charter of Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629)

“Thus stands the cause between God and us, we are entered into Covenant with him for this work we have taken out a Commission…Now if the Lord shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace to this place we desire, then he hath ratified this Covenant ad sealed our Commission, and will expect a strict performance of the Articles contained in it, but if we shall neglect the observation of these Articles which are the ends we have propounded, and dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for our solves an dour posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us be revenged of such a perjured people and make us knowe the price of the breach of such a Covenant.”

Winthrop, “A Modell of Christian Charity” (15)

“We shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with out god in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world, we shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God and all professors for God’s sake; we shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned to curses upon us till we are consumed out of this good land whether we are going.”

Winthrop, “A Modell of Christian Charity” (15)

“The American Revolution broke out. The dogma of the sovereignty of the people came out from the township and took possession of the government; every class enlisted in its cause; the war was fought and victory obtained in its name; it became the law of laws.”

Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America (59)

“He is arrived on a new continent: a modern society offers itself to his contemplation, different from the old world. It is composed not as in Europe of great lords who possess everything and a herd of people who have nothing. Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power, giving to a few a very visible one, no great manufactures employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe.”

Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters (40-41)

“The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions. . . . Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. . . . An immigrant when he first arrives . . . no sooner breathes our air than he forms new schemes, and embarks in designs he never would have thought of in his own country. . . . He begins to feel the effects of a sort of resurrection; hitherto he had not lived, but simply vegetated; he now feels himself a man . . . Judge what an alteration there must arise in the mind and thoughts of this man . . . his heart involuntarily swells and glows; this first swell inspires him with those new thoughts which constitute an American.”

-de Crèvecoeur, Letters (44-45)

“Thus are our first steps trodden, thus are our first trees felled, in general, by the most vicious of our people, and thus the path is opened for the arrival of a second and better class, the true American freeholders; the most respectable set of people in this part of the world; respectable for their industry, their happy independence, the great share of freedom they possess, the good regulation of their families, and for extending the trade and the dominion of our mother-country.”

de Crèvecoeur, Letters (54-55)

“What attachment can a poor European emigrant have for a country where he had nothing? The knowledge of the language, the love of a few kindred as poor as himself, were the only cords that tied him. His country is now that which gives him his land, bread, protection, and consequence. Ubi panis ibi patria is the motto of all emigrants…The American ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he or his forefathers were born. Here the rewards of his industry follow, with equal steps, the progress of his labor. His labor is founded on the basis of nature, self-interest: can it want a stronger allurement?”

de Crèvecoeur, Letters (43-44)

“After a foreigner from any part of Europe is arrived and becomes a citizen, let him devoutly listen to the voice of our great parent, which says to him, “Welcome to my shores distressed European; bless the hour in which though didst see my verdant fields, my fair navigable rivers, and my green mountains! If thou wilst work, I have bread for thee; if thou will be honest, sober, industrious, I have greater rewards to confer on thee—ease and independence. I will give thee fields to feed and clothe thee; a comfortable fire-side to sit by, and tell they children by what means thou has prospered and a decent bed to repose on. I shall endow thee besides with the immunities of a freeman, if thou whilst carefully educate thy children, teach them gratitude to God, and reverence to the government, that philanthropic government which has collected so many men and made them happy. I will also provide for thy progeny… Go thou, and work and till, thou shalt prosper provided thou be just, grateful, and industrious.””

Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer (65-66)

“With a malevolence which is without parallel in history, he would work all day, and then sit up nights, and let on to be studying algebra by the light of a smoldering fire, so that all other boys might have to do that also, or else have Benjamin Franklin thrown up to them. Not satisfied with these proceedings, he had a fashion of living wholly on bread and water, and studying astronomy at meal time--a thing which has brought affliction to millions of boys since, whose fathers had read Franklin's pernicious biography.”

Mark Twain, "The Late Benjamin Franklin” (1870)

“I can't stand Benjamin. He tries to take away my wholeness and my dark forest, my freedom. For how can any man be free, without an illimitable background? Benjamin tries to shove me into a barbed wire paddock and make me grow potatoes or Chicagoes. Why then did Benjamin set up this dummy of a perfect citizen as a pattern to America? Of course, he did it in perfect good faith, as far as he knew. He thought it simply was the true ideal. But what we think we do is not very important. We never really know what we are doing. Either we are materialistic instruments, like Benjamin, or we move in the gesture of creation, from our deepest self, usually unconscious. We are only the actors, we are never wholly the authors of our own deeds or works. ”

D.H. Lawrence, Classic Studies in American Literature (1923)

“A Right to Life.. to Liberty… to Property” (78)

“His natural right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience” (80)

“That these Colonists are well entitled to all these essential rights, liberties and privileges of men and freemen, born in Britain, is manifest, not only from the Colony charter, in general, but acts of the British Parliament” (81)

Samuel Adams — The Rights of The Colonists

“The unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them, a decent receipt to the opinion of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Declaration of Independence

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Declaration of Independence (1776)

“The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature, for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society… May we not even say, that the form of government is the best, which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristo into the office of government?”

Thomas Jefferson — Letter to John Adams (1813)

“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its’ most sacred rights of life and liberty in the person of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere… he is now exciting those very people to rise up in arms among us… thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another”

Jefferson’s draft of Declaration

“We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Declaration of Independence

“It is certain in Theory, that the only moral Foundation of Government is the Consent of the People. But to what an Extent Shall We carry this Principle? Shall We Say, that every Individual of the Community, old and young, male and female, as well as rich and poor, must consent, expressly to every Act of Legislation? No, you will Say. This is impossible. How then does the Right arise in the Majority to govern the Minority, against their Will? Whence arises the Right of the Men to govern Women, without their Consent? Whence the Right of the old to bind the Young, without theirs?

Depend upon it, sir, it is dangerous to open So fruitful a Source of Controversy and Altercation, as would be opened by attempting to alter the Qualifications of Voters. There will be no End of it. New Claims will arise. Women will demand a Vote. Lads from 12 to 21 will think their Rights not enough attended to, and every Man, who has not a Farthing, will demand an equal Voice with any other in all Acts of State. It tends to confound and destroy all Distinctions, and prostrate all Ranks, to one common Levell. I am &c.”

John Adams to James Sullivan (1776)

Article II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.

Article III. The said states hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defence, the security of their Liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever.

Articles of Confederation

“By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

The most common and durable source of factions has always been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold, and those who are without property, have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors and those who are debtors fall under a like discrimination.”

Publius — Federalist Papers 10 (p. 41)

“A FIRM Union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the States, as a barrier against domestic faction and insurrection. It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy.”

Publius — Federalist Papers 9 (p. 39)

“Resolved, That in the opinion of Congress it is expedient, that on the second Monday of May next a convention of delegates, who shall have been appointed by the several States, be held at Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein, as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, render the federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the government and preservation fo the union.”

Report of the Proceedings of Congress, Feb 1787

“I have attempted to show, that a consolidation of this extensive continent, under one government, for internal as well as external purposes, which is evidently the tendency of this constitution, cannot succeed, without a sacrifice of your liberties; and therefore that the attempt is not only preposterous, but extremely dangerous; and I have shown, independent of this, that the plan is radically defective in a fundamental principle, which ought to be found in every free government; to wit, a declaration of rights.”

Brutus, Letter III (pp. 453-454)

“Let us view the ground on which the Convention stood. It may be collected from their proceedings, that they were deeply and unanimously impressed with the crisis, which had led their country almost with one voice to make so singular and solemn an experiment for correcting the errors of a system by which this crisis had been produced…

They must have reflected, that in all great changes of established governments, forms ought to give way to substance; that a rigid adherence in such cases to the former, would render nominal and nugatory the transcendent and precious right of the people to "abolish or alter their governments as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness,'' since it is impossible for the people spontaneously and universally to move in concert towards their object; and it is therefore essential that such changes be instituted by some informal and unauthorized propositions, made by some patriotic and respectable citizen or number of citizens.”

Publius — Federalist Papers 40 (pp. 192-193)

“After an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force..”

Publius — Federalist Papers, 1

“If respect is to be paid to the opinion of the greatest and wisest men who have ever thought or wrote on the science of government, we shall be constrained to conclude, that a free republic cannot succeed over a country of such immense extent, containing such a number of inhabitants, and these increasing in such rapid progression as that of the whole United States”

Brutus, ‘Letter 1’ (pp. 443)

“The science of politics, however, like most other sciences has received great improvement. The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients. The regular distribution of power into distinct departments - the introduction of legislative balances and checks - the institution of courts composed of judges, holding their offices during good behaviour - the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election - these were either wholly new discoveries of have made their principles progress towards perfection in modern times.”

Publius — Federalist 9 (p. 36)

“The very term, representative, implies, that the person or body chosen for this purpose, should resemble those who appoint them—a representation of the people of America, if it be a true one, must be like the people. It ought to be so constituted, that a person, who is a stranger to the country, might be able to form a just idea of their character, by knowing that of their representatives. They are the sign—the people are the thing signified. It is absurd to speak of one thing being the representative of another, upon any other principle…

Society instituted government to promote the happiness of the whole, and this is the great end always in view in the delegation of powers. It must then have been intended, that those who are placed instead of the people, should possess their sentiments and feelings, and be governed by their interests, or, in other words, should bear the strongest resemblance of those in whose room they are substituted.”

Brutus, “Letter III” (p. 456)

“AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserve to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction… the mortal diseases under which popular governments have every where perished” (p. 40)

“By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community” (p. 41)

“There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests” (p. 41) “Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires” (p. 41)

Publius — Federalist Paper #10

“The legislative department is every where extending the sphere of its activity, and owing all power into its impetuous vortex… The founders of our republics… seem never to have recalled the danger from legislative usurpations; which by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as it thread by executive usurpations.”

Publius — Federalist 48 (p. 241)

“Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probably that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their strength, and to act in unison with each other.”

Publius — Federalist 10 (p. 45)

“The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country and whose patriotism and love of justice, will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant with the public good, than if pronounced by the people themselves convened for the purpose”

Publius — Federalist 10

““But the greatest security against a gradual concentration of the severe powers in the same government, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others……

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.”

Publius — Federalist 51 (p. 252)

“Divide et impera, the reprobated axiom of tyranny, is under certain qualifications, the only policy, by which a republic can be administered on just principles.”

James Madison to Thomas Jefferson (24 October 1787)

“Those who have governed, have been found in all ages ever active to enlarge their powers and abridge the public liberty. This has induced the people in all countries, where any sense of freedom remained, to fix barriers against encroachment of their rulers.”

Brutus “Letter II” (p. 449)

“[The spirit of party] serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community will ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animist of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party influence”

- George Washington Farewell Address (p. 279)

“[T]he government ought to be clothed with all the powers requisite to complete the execution of its trust… there can be no limitation of that authority which is to provide for the defense and protection of the community, in any matter essential to its efficacy that is, in any matter essential to the formation, direction, or support of the national forces.”

Publius — Federalist Papers 23

““I own, I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive… And say, finally whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the government, or information to the people. This last is the most certain and legitimate engine of government. Educate and inform the whole mass of people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. It is my principle that the will of the majority should prevail….

This reliance cannot deceive us, as long as we remain virtuous; and I think we shall be so, as long as agriculture is our principle object, which will be the case, while there remain vacant lands in any part of America. When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they do there”

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison 1787 (212)

“It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every movement to the people for support. They will be forgotten therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our fights shall revise or expire in a convulsion.”

Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (XVII: 305)

“Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the earth. Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example. It is the mark set on those, who not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the husbandman, for their subsistence, depend for it on casualties and caprice of customers. Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”

Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (XIX: 306)  

“While we have land to labour then, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a work-bench, or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry: but, for the general operations of manufacture, let our work-shops remain in Europe… The mobs of great cities add just so much for the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.”

Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (XIX: 306)  

“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to their men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment… Each generation is as independent as the one preceding it, as that was of all which had gone before. It has then, like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness; consequently, to accommodate to the circumstances in which it finds itself, that received from its predecessors; and it is for the peace and good of mankind that a column opportunity of doing this every nineteen or twenty years, should be provided by the constitution; so that it may be handed down with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time, if anything human can so long endure.” ”

Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval (1816), p. 331-332