Thomas Jefferson
Third US President (1743 to 1826); author of the Declaration of Independence and Notes on the State of Virginia.
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Their wordsDeep-rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections by the blacks of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which Nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIV: Laws (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 6 from this book
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Their wordsThose 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.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIX: Manufactures (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 3 from this book
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Their wordsThe rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVII: Religion (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 9 from this book
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Our reading
Relations between master and slave are a constant exercise of despotism and degrading submission
Their wordsThe whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII: Manners (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org
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Their wordsWhile we have land to labor 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.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIX: Manufactures (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 3 from this book
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Our reading
Blacks may be inferior to whites in endowments of body and mind, a view offered as a suspicion only
Their wordsI advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIV: Laws (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 6 from this book
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Their wordsBut 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.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVII: Religion (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 9 from this book
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Their wordsThe mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIX: Manufactures (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 3 from this book
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Their wordsAmong the Romans emancipation required but one effort. The slave, when made free, might mix with, without staining the blood of his master. But with us a second is necessary, unknown to history. When freed, he is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIV: Laws (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 6 from this book
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Their wordsConstraint may make him worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man. It may fix him obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVII: Religion (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 9 from this book
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Our reading
The chief aim of public education is making the people safe guardians of their own liberty
Their wordsBut of all the views of this law, none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIV: Laws (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 6 from this book
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Their wordsReason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVII: Religion (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 9 from this book
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Our reading
Government degenerates when trusted to rulers alone; the people are its only safe depositories
Their wordsEvery Government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIV: Laws (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 6 from this book
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Their wordsIt is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVII: Religion (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 9 from this book
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Our reading
Corruption is better restrained by a wide right to vote than by limiting it to the wealthy
Their wordsIt has been thought that corruption is restrained by confining the right of suffrage to a few of the wealthier of the people; but it would be more effectually restrained by an extension of that right to such numbers as would bid defiance to the means of corruption.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIV: Laws (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 6 from this book
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Their wordsBut is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVII: Religion (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 9 from this book
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Their wordsWhat has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVII: Religion (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 9 from this book
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Their wordsThey have made the happy discovery, that the way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVII: Religion (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 9 from this book
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Their wordsIt can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united.
↗Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVII: Religion (1853 edition)en.wikisource.org All 9 from this book