Search | Jefferson Quotes & Family Letters

Custom Dates

Dates

Extract from Thomas Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of Virginia,” 1782 [Quote]

But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of Virginia,” 1782 [Quote]

The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subjects to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson’s Observations on Jean Nicolas Démeunier’s Article on the United States prepared for the Encyclopédie Méthodique, [22 June 1786] [Quote]

say ‘there were 10. states present. 6. voted unanimously for it, 3. against it, and one was divided: and seven votes being requisite to decide the proposition affirmatively, it was lost. the voice of a single individual of the state which was divided, or of one of those which were of the negative...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Henri Grégoire, 25 Feb. 1809 [Quote]

I have received the favor of your letter of aug: 17. and with it the Volume you were so kind as to send me on the literature of negroes. be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself entertained and expressed on the...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to the Republicans of Georgetown, 8 Mar. 1809 [Quote]

the principles on which we engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record, were sanctioned by the laws of our being, and we but Obeyed them in pursuing undeviatingly the course they called for. it issued finally in that inestimable state of freedom which alone can ensure to man...

Margaret Bayard Smith's Account of a Visit to Monticello in 1809, as published within "A Winter In Washington: or, Memoirs of the Seymour Family," in 1824

During the hot months of July, August, and September, there is a kind of interregnum in society, when pleasure and happiness are equally suspended. Mr. Seymour and his family generally passed this leisure season at Ballston Springs, or the sea-shore; but this year, wishing to vary the scene, they...

Elizabeth Trist to Catharine Wistar Bache, 3 May 1812

I take the earliest opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of your Welcome favor which was to have been forwarded by Harmer he has beheaved most shockingly to be sure, and when I see him I shall give him a good scolding I wrote to Mrs Thompson for some little things that I wanted or shou’d want...

John Wayles Eppes to Caesar A. Rodney, 11 Jan. 1819

Your letter was received this morning. You must certainly be mistaken when you state having loaned me many years since at Washington a Book on neutral rights—I have no such book in my library at home and have never either seen or read the work you mention—although not very particular in other...

Ellen W. Randolph (Coolidge) to Martha Jefferson Randolph, 13 Sept. 1820

We have reached our journey’s end my dear Mother, in safety, not without some disagreable adventures, such as being confined one whole day by the rain—at Flood’s tavern we left Uncle Eppes’s before sun-rise monday—the morning was lowering, and it was dropping rain before we set out, but you know...

Ellen W. Randolph (Coolidge) to Martha Jefferson Randolph, 13 Sept. 1820

We have reached our journey’s end my dear Mother, in safety, not without some disagreable adventures, such as being confined one whole day by the rain—at Flood’s tavern we left Uncle Eppes’s before sun rise monday—the morning was lowering, and it was dropping rain before we set out, but you know...

Etienne St. Julien de Tournillon to Nicholas Philip Trist, 28 Nov. 1820

nous avons été pendant près De trois Semaines Dans une bien pénible perplexité: notre Chère marie louise En jouant Dans la chambre De sa g-maman a fait une chûte, Dont les Suites ont été bien funestes, puisqu’il y a Eu une fracture. Le Deur m. que nous avons de Suite Envoyé chercher a d’abord...

Thomas Jefferson Randolph, as executor of Thomas Jefferson's Will, Manumits Critty Hemings Bowles, 20 Jan. 1827

Know all men by these presents, that I Thomas J. Randolph of the County of Albemarle, in the state of Virginia, and executor of the last will and testament of Thomas Jefferson deceased, for and in consideration of the sum of Fifty dollars, to me in hand paid by Francis Eppes, the receipt where of...

Thomas Mann Randolph to Nicholas P. Trist, 11 Mar. 1828

My circumstances & state of health being afflicted with that Gout, or Rheumatic affection of the stomach which attacked me in August 1826, and state of Mind so influenced by no very pleasing associations with Monticello during the last short interval of my residence there, almost constant...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge’s London Travel Diary, 31 [30] Jan. 1839

the last day of the month I do not know how it is that doing so little I have so little time to do any thing in. It is a problem I cannot solve. On Sunday, feeling somewhat feeble from my late indisposition, I went with Mrs Stevenson, by appointment, to call on Mrs Grote, wife of the radical...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge’s London Travel Diary, 1 May 1839

Off the Banks of Newfoundland. Three weeks at sea. Dismal weeks of incessant sickness & suffering. Let no one talk of sea-sickness who has not felt it in it’s horrors—it’s weakness, it’s helplessness, it’s utter prostration of all power bodily and mental. O long days & weeks of giddiness ...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 11 June 1857

I have your two letters before me—If I have not sooner replied to them my excuse is simply that I could not. A complication of family cares & duties rendered it impossible for me to write till now. The first Mrs Francis Eppes was a niece of my father’s—the eldest daughter of his sister Jane...

Account of the Sale of Monticello, Buck Island, and Slaves, 25 Nov. 1864

THE SALE OF MONTICELLO. A correspondent of the Lynchburg Republican sends that paper an account of the sale of Monticello, the former residence of Thomas Jefferson. It was sold under the confiscation act. The letter says a large crowd was present, and— “Among them was Captain Jonas P. Levy,...

Extract from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Undelivered Address prepared for Jefferson Day, 13 Apr. 1945 [Quote]

In this historic year, more than ever before, we do well to consider the character of Thomas Jefferson as an American citizen of the world. As Minister to France, then as our first Secretary of State and as our third President, Jefferson was instrumental in the establishment of the United States...

Extract from David Remnick’s Interview with Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, 1 Aug. 1991 [Quote]

Gorbachev advisor Shakhnzarov ... keeps a copy of the Federalist Papers on his desk, and he says that both he and Gorbachev have read and admire Alexander Hamilton’s essay on the need for a federal taxation system ... But Russian republic Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev cites a different American...