we should then have only to include the North in our confederacy, which would be of course in the first war, and we should have such an empire for liberty as she has never surveyed since the creation: & I am persuaded no constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive...
I console myself with the reflection that those who will come after us will be as wise as we are, & as able to take care of themselves as we have been.
an honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens ... this is my belief of it; it is that on which I have acted; and had it been a mere contest who should be permitted to administer the government according to it’s genuine republican principles, there has never...
a constitution has been acquired which, tho neither of us think perfect, yet both consider as competent to render our fellow-citizens the happiest and the securest on whom the sun has ever shone.
not in our day; but at no distant one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble. but I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
Altho’ I had laid down, as a law to myself, never to write, talk, or even think of politics, to know nothing of public affairs & therefore had ceased to read newspapers. yet the Missouri question arroused and filled me with alarm. the old schism of federal & republican, threatened nothing...
We arrived at Monticello, three miles farther, about eleven o’clock, ascending the South West Mountain, on which the house is situated, by a winding carriage-road through the wood. I sent in my letter to Mr. Jefferson, who soon afterwards came out and gave me a polite reception, leading me...
Th: Jefferson returns his thanks ... for the eloquent discourse on the Consecration of the Synagogue of Savannah ... it excites in him the gratifying reflection that his own country has been the first to prove to the world two truths, the most salutary to human society, that man can govern...
my greatest grief would be for the fatal effect of such an event on the hopes and happiness of the world. we exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government, so modelled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government. were we to break to pieces,...
and I have observed this march of civilisation advancing from the sea coast, passing over us like a cloud of light, increasing our knolege and improving our condition … and where this progress will stop no one can say.