Thomas Jefferson

...We are all Federalists,and we are all Republicans.

The dead should not rule the living.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.

We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccesful rebellions indeed generally establish the incroachments 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 a medecine necessary for the sound health of government.

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

He [Weishaupt] says, no one ever laid a surer foundation for liberty than our grand master, Jesus of Nazareth.

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty & property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.

Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be.

How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

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.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace