 "I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." --Thomas Jefferson "The democracy will cease to exist when you TAKE away from those who are willing to work and GIVE to those who would not." -- Thomas Jefferson "It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world." -- Thomas Jefferson "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can PREVENT the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." -- Thomas Jefferson "My reading of history convinces me that MOST BAD government results from TOO MUCH government." -- Thomas Jefferson "If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as the souls who live under tyranny." -- Thomas Jefferson "The two enemies of the people are criminals and government. So let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so that the second will not become the legal version of the first." -- Thomas Jefferson "They are NOT to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare. Giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever EVIL they please." -- Thomas Jefferson "To preserve the independence of the people, we MUST NOT let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mis managers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow sufferers." -- Thomas Jefferson "Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing us to slavery." -- Thomas Jefferson And here is one I really like and it was from over 150 years ago; "The necessary result, then, of the unequal fiscal action of the government is to divide the community into two great classes, one consisting of those who, in reality, pay taxes and, of course, bear exclusively the burden of supporting the government; and the other, of those who are the recipients of their proceeds through disbursements, and who are, in fact, supported by the government; or in fewer words, divide it into tax-payers and tax-consumers."-- John C. Calhoun – 1833
THOMAS JEFFERSON
PRESIDENCY
His 8 Years as President:
PRO
 Jefferson was one of the most brilliant men ever to serve as president. His
interest in geography and natural science helped him to understand the true
significance of the Louisiana Territory, and when Napoleon made his fateful
offer, Jefferson acted swiftly and decisively to accept it, thereby doubling the
land area of the U.S. He then dispatched his personal secretary, Meriwether
Lewis, along with William Clark, on a scientific expedition to explore the new
territory. (See: "In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark," Chap. 13.)
CON
While undoubtedly a great mind, and perhaps a great man, Jefferson was
certainly not a great--or even a particularly effective--president. In
purchasing Louisiana from France, he did no more than any other reasonable man
might have done in the same situation. Historians have praised him for showing
flexibility in his principles of strict constitutional construction and limited
presidential authority. What his actions on Louisiana really demonstrate is that
these often-enunciated principles were only matters of convenience with
Jefferson, used to justify certain ends but then abandoned when they stood in
his way. The pronouncements of Jefferson, like those of any other politician,
must be taken with a grain of salt.
PRO
Jefferson corrected many of the authoritarian excesses of the Adams
administration-ending the celebrated "reign of terror" and returning to the
people their rights of free speech and free press.
CON
Here is another prime example of Jeffersonian hypocrisy. The President took a
civil libertarian position only when it was convenient for him to do so. His
interference in the Aaron Burr treason trial makes even Richard Nixon's
much-publicized meddling in the Ellsberg case seem like child's play by
comparison. Jefferson was determined to see his former rival hanged as a
traitor, and he was ready to abandon all constitutional restraints in the
process. He not only announced his opinion that Burr was guilty before the jury
could consider the case, but he attempted to bribe witnesses with promises of
presidential pardons if only they would testify against Burr. Concerning this
case, Jefferson was the author of this incredible statement: "There are extreme
cases when the laws become inadequate even to their own preservation, and where
the universal resource is a dictator, or martial law."
PRO
Jefferson's cool leadership helped avoid American involvement in the
Napoleonic wars that were raging in Europe. At his insistence, an embargo was
placed on all American foreign trade, in hopes of forcing the European powers
into respecting American maritime rights. Though this policy created
considerable economic hardship, it was certainly preferable to a war for which
America was woefully unprepared.
CON
Jefferson himself must take responsibility for the difficult position in
which he found himself as president. He had cut back the army and navy to such a
pitiful level that the European powers could afford to ignore all American
threats and requests. Even given this unnecessary situation, the embargo was a
hopelessly misguided idea. It forced no concessions from the European powers,
while creating widespread unemployment and considerable economic hardship for
hundreds of thousands of Americans. Moreover, Jefferson's wholesale arrest of
individuals and seizure of cargoes on the merest suspicion of intent to export,
once more demonstrates his total disregard for civil liberties. According to
Leonard Levy, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning expert on the Constitution: "To this day,
the Embargo Act remains the most repressive and unconstitutional legislation
ever enacted by Congress in time of peace."
The house, which Jefferson designed, was based on the neoclassical principles described in the books of the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. He reworked it through much of his presidency to include design elements popular in late eighteenth-century Europe. It contains many of his own design solutions. The house is situated on the summit of an 850-foot (260 m)-high peak in the Southwest Mountains south of the Rivanna Gap. Its name comes from the Italian "little mount." The plantation at full operations included numerous outbuildings for specialized functions, a nailery, and quarters for domestic slaves along Mulberry Row near the house; gardens for flowers, produce, and Jefferson's experiments in plant breeding; plus tobacco fields and mixed crops. Cabins for field slaves were located further from the mansion. At Jefferson's direction, he was buried on the grounds, an area now designated as the Monticello Cemetery, which is owned by the Monticello Association, a lineage society of his descendants through Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson.[4] After Jefferson's death, his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph sold the property. After other owners, in 1834 it was bought by Uriah P. Levy, a commodore in the U.S. Navy, who admired Jefferson and spent his own money to preserve the property. His nephew Jefferson Monroe Levy took over the property in 1879; he also invested considerable money to restore and preserve it. He held it until 1923, when he sold it to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which operates it as a house museum and educational institution. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1987 Monticello and the nearby University of Virginia, also designed by Jefferson, were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. "And our own dear Monticello, where has nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye? mountains, forests, rocks, rivers. With what majesty do we there ride above the storms! How sublime to look down into the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet! And the glorious Sun, when rising as if out of a distant water, just gliding the tops of the mountains, and giving life to all nature!" - Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway 1786 October 12. | |||
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson http://www.american-history-fun-facts.com/facts-on-thomas-jefferson.html |
