The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) — John Shaqi
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20)Jefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20)
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1789
There was a sympathy between his heart and the great popular heart,
which time and conditions have never shaken. Expressions from his
writings have become axioms, creeds and rallying cries to great
multitudes of his countrymen. Three quarters of a century have elapsed
since his death, and yet his ideas, doctrines and teachings are still
quoted and accepted without any apparent diminution of their influence.
Cicero had in mind an exact prototype of Jefferson when he said,
"_Homines ad deos nulla re propius accedunt quam salutem hominibus
dando._"[1]
[1] There is no way by which man can approach nearer to the gods
than by contributing to the welfare of their fellow creatures.
Authentic history shows a persistent tendency of the Anglo-Saxon race
in the unswerving direction of personal liberty. The inhabitants of the
American Colonies revealed a tenacity and self-assertiveness in this
direction to a greater extent than had ever been shown in England. The
Jeffersonian idea has ever been that there shall be no king; that the
sovereign ruler should be placed on the same level and be judged by the
same principles as the humblest citizen; that the lords of the manors
are entitled to no more privileges than the poorest peasant; that these
rights are inalienable, and that any government which disregards them
must of necessity be tyrannical.
In his introduction to De Tocqueville's able "Democracy in America,"
Mr. John T. Morgan thus describes the formative period of the American
Republic, a period in which the name of Thomas Jefferson must, if
justice be meted out to him, appear in every chapter, and in every
important achievement that was then made:
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