Thomas Jefferson - The spirit of a free America

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people
preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts,
pardon and pacify them." --Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers
12:356

"Governments, wherein the will of every one has a just influence... has its evils,... the principal of which
is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it
becomes nothing. Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem. [I prefer the tumult of liberty
to the quiet of servitude.] Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of
government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs." --Thomas Jefferson to James
Madison, 1787. ME 6:64

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always
kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a
little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere." --Thomas Jefferson to Abigail
Adams, 1787.

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion... We have had thirteen States
independent for eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century
and a half, for each State. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion?"
--Thomas Jefferson to William S. Smith, 1787. ME 6:372

"Most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not
distinguish between acts against the government, and acts against the oppressions of the government.
The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former, because
real treasons are rare; oppressions frequent. The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been
the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries." --Thomas Jefferson: Report on Spanish Convention,
1792.

"If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads
instead of its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Haman's."
--Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 1786. ME 5:444

"The commotions that have taken place in America, as far as they are yet known to me, offer nothing
threatening. They are a proof that the people have liberty enough, and I could not wish them less than
they have. If the happiness of the mass of the people can be secured at the expense of a little tempest
now and then, or even of a little blood, it will be a precious purchase. 'Malo libertatem periculosam
quam quietem servitutem.' Let common sense and common honesty have fair play, and they will soon
set things to rights." --Thomas Jefferson to Ezra Stiles, 1786. ME 6:25

"The tumults in America I expected would have produced in Europe an unfavorable opinion of our
political state. But it has not. On the contrary, the small effect of these tumults seems to have given
more confidence in the firmness of our governments. The interposition of the people themselves on the
side of government has had a great effect on the opinion here [in Europe]." --Thomas Jefferson to
Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57

"The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it should have done. Calculate
that one rebellion in thirteen states in the course of eleven years, is but one for each state in a century
and a half. No country should be so long without one. Nor will any degree of power in the hands of
government prevent insurrections." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:391

"[An occasional insurrection] will not weigh against the inconveniences of a government of force, such
as are monarchies and aristocracies." --Thomas Jefferson to T. B. Hollis, July 2, 1787. (*) ME 6:155

"Cherish... the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their
errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME
6:58

Misdirected Resistance

"There are extraordinary situations which require extraordinary interposition. An exasperated people
who feel that they possess power are not easily restrained within limits strictly regular." --Thomas
Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:196, Papers 1:127

"[The] uneasiness [of the people] has produced acts absolutely unjustifiable; but I hope they will
provoke no severities from their governments. A consciousness of those in power that their
administration of the public affairs has been honest may, perhaps, produce too great a degree of
indignation; and those characters wherein fear predominates over hope, may apprehend too much from
these instances of irregularity. They may conclude too hastily, that nature has formed man
insusceptible of any other government than that of force, a conclusion not founded in truth nor
experience." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, Jan. 30, 1787. ME 6:64

"The arm of the people [is] a machine not quite so blind as balls and bombs, but blind to a certain
degree." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1793. ME 9:10

"I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as
storms are in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on
the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest
republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is
medicine necessary for the sound health of government." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787.
ME 6:65

"[No] degree of power in the hands of government [will] prevent insurrections." --Thomas Jefferson to
James Madison, 1787. Papers 12:442.

"The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1820.
ME 15:283

"What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to
time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." --Thomas Jefferson to William
Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers 12:356

Rebellion, Right and Wrong

"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [i.e., securing inherent and
inalienable rights, with powers derived from the consent of the governed], it is the right of the people to
alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and
happiness." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:315

"In no country on earth is [a disposition to oppose the law by force] so impracticable as in one where
every man feels a vital interest in maintaining the authority of the laws, and instantly engages in it as in
his own personal cause." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith, 1808. ME 12:62

"In a country whose constitution is derived from the will of the people directly expressed by their free
suffrages, where the principal executive functionaries and those of the legislature are renewed by them
at short periods, where under the character of jurors they exercise in person the greatest portion of the
judiciary powers, where the laws are consequently so formed and administered as to bear with equal
weight and favor on all, restraining no man in the pursuits of honest industry and securing to every one
the property which that acquires, it would not be supposed that any safeguards could be needed against
insurrection or enterprise on the public peace or authority. The laws, however, aware that these should
not be trusted to moral restraints only, have wisely provided punishments for these crimes when
committed." --Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806. ME 3:418

"As revolutionary instruments (when nothing but revolution will cure the evils of the State) [secret
societies] are necessary and indispensable, and the right to use them is inalienable by the people; but
to admit them as ordinary and habitual instruments as a part of the machinery of the Constitution,
would be to change that machinery by introducing moving powers foreign to it, and to an extent
depending solely on local views, and, therefore, incalculable." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane,
1803. FE 8:256

"The paradox with me is how any friend to the union of our country can, in conscience, contribute a
cent to the maintenance of anyone who perverts the sanctity of his desk to the open inculcation of
rebellion, civil war, dissolution of government, and the miseries of anarchy." --Thomas Jefferson to
William Plumer, 1815. ME 14:235