each generation is as independant of the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before. it has then, like them, a right to chuse for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of it’s own happiness.

Some men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, & deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. they ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well: I belonged to it,...

I am not among those who fear the people. they and not the rich, are our dependance for continued freedom. and to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt ... if we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our...

I do not think their laws amendment so difficult as is pretended. only lay down true principles, and adhere to them inflexibly. do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth agains the ascendancy of the people.

I wish you and he could concert your movements so as to meet here, and that you would make this your head quarters. it is a good central point from which to visit your connections; and you know our practice of placing our guests at their ease, by shewing them we are so ourselves, & that we...

our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of their powers: that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, & to take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this...

you will find me in habitual good health, great contentedness, enfeebled in body, impaired in memory, but without decay in my friendships.

come as you will, or as you can, it will always be joy enough to me.

Perhaps the most curious single specimen—or, at least, the most characteristic of the man and expressive of his hatred of royalty—was a collection which he had bound up in six volumes, and lettered “The Book of Kings,” consisting of the “Memoires de la Princesse de Bareith,” two volumes; “Les...

The evening passed away pleasantly in general conversation, of which Mr. Jefferson was necessarily the leader ... He has the same discursive manner and love of paradox, with the same appearance of sobriety and cool reason. He seems equally fond of American antiquities, and especially the...