The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed,
the animation of discussion and of exertions has sometimes worn
an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely
and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now
decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the
rules of the constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves
under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the
common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle,
that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that
will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess
their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to
violate which would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow citizens,
unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse
that harmony and affection without which liberty and
even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that
having banished from our land that religious intolerance under
which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained
little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as
wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During
the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the
agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and
slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation
of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful
shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less
by others; that this should divide opinions as to measures of
safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of
principle. We have called by different names brethren of the
same principle. We are all republicans--we are federalists. If
there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union
or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as
monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be
tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed,
that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot
be strong; that this government is not strong enough. But
would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment,
abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm,
on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the
world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself?
I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest
government on earth. I believe it is the only one where every
man, at the call of the laws, would fly to the standard of the
law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own
personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be
trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted
with the government of others? Or have we found angels in
the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this
question.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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