Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones
| Washington Mar. 31. 1801. |
I am sensible how far I should fall short of effecting all the reformation which reason would suggest and experience approve, were I free to do whatever I thought best. but when we reflect how difficult it is to move or inflect the great machine of society, how impossible to advance the notions of a whole people suddenly to ideal right, we see the wisdom of Solen’s remark that no more good must be attempted than the nation can bear.
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March 31, 1801
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