Old Tom Jefferson saw clearly....

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tector
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Old Tom Jefferson saw clearly....

Post by tector »

https://nymag.com/news/politics/electio ... n-2012-10/

On December 26, 1825, Jefferson, dismayed by the presidency of John Quincy Adams and John Marshall’s Supreme Court, wrote a missive, excerpted below, on the role of government, to former Virginia senator William Branch Giles.

Dear Sir,

I see, as you do, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power. Take together the decisions of the federal court, the doctrines of the President, and the misconstructions of the constitutional compact acted on by the legislature of the federal branch, and it is but too evident, that the three ruling branches of that department are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic. Under the power to regulate commerce, they assume indefinitely that also over agriculture and manufactures, and call it regulation to take the earnings of one of these branches of industry, and that too the most depressed, and put them into the pockets of the other, the most flourishing of all. Under the authority to establish post roads, they claim that of cutting down mountains for the construction of roads, of digging canals, and aided by a little sophistry on the words “general welfare,” a right to do, not only the acts to effect that, which are specifically enumerated and permitted, but whatsoever they shall think, or pretend will be for the general welfare. And what is our resource for the preservation of the constitution? Reason and argument? You might as well reason and argue with the marble columns encircling them. The representatives chosen by ourselves? They are joined in the combination, some from incorrect views of government, some from corrupt ones, sufficient voting together to out-number the sound parts; and with majorities only of one, two, or three, bold enough to go forward in defiance. Are we then to stand to our arms, with the hot-headed Georgian? No. That must be the last resource, not to be thought of until much longer and greater sufferings. If every infraction of a compact of so many parties is to be resisted at once, as a dissolution of it, none can ever be formed which would last one year. We must have patience and longer endurance then with our brethren while under delusion; give them time for reflection and experience of consequences; keep ourselves in a situation to profit by the chapter of accidents; and separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left, are the dissolution of our Union with them, or submission to a government without limitation of powers. Between these two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation.
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
mohshard
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Post by mohshard »

It's a living document.......

When one of the founders calls out the nation, that far back, it's indicative.
Of course, now he's been called out for miscegenation in papers and in Hamilton.....
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Wulfmann
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Post by Wulfmann »

Funny thing is Jefferson was actually a liberal and the most staunch supporter of the second amendment

Those who call themselves liberals are liars.
They are communist not liberals.
Real liberals appose the power of a central government
dammitgriff
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Post by dammitgriff »

mohshard wrote:It's a living document.......

When one of the founders calls out the nation, that far back, it's indicative.
Of course, now he's been called out for miscegenation in papers and in Hamilton.....
I’m with Jefferson on his view of the limited role of government in state affairs.
Unfortunately, 3/4ths of this nation’s citizenry are wholly ignorant of the prime directive of the Constitution: to define our government and to LIMIT IT.
The remaining 25% who do understand it consist of academics who either promote or denounce its limitations, and politicians, legislators and jurists who continue the long tradition of circumventing it at every turn.
We’re closer than we have been since 1860 to another great domestic upheaval; an emergent Fourth Turning is just over the horizon.
R/Griff
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Flame Red
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Post by Flame Red »

Don't forget that the Kommies-in-charge cheaters and the BLM want to CANCEL Jefferson (and Washington too), demolish the Jefferson Memorial, remove his head from Mt. Rushmore, and replace it with the Obomination Image as he was a racist slave owner. :roll:
Ah that's one thing about our Flame, doesn't play any favorites! Flame hates everybody!
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gforester
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Post by gforester »

Jefferson freed all his slaves.
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tector
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Post by tector »

Jefferson and slavery is a complicated subject, befitting a complicated man. His original draft of the Declaration contained the following:

"He [King George III] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."

The latter part refers to the 1775 proclamation by Lord Dunmore which offered freedom to any slaves who volunteered to serve in the British army against the Revolutionists.
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
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