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The general (federal) government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cures.

Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
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President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Tend
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Instead
Working
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Fortify
Monarchy
Federal
Cures

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The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights, and are the only instruments which can be used for their destruction. And certainly they would never consent to be so used were they not deceived. To avoid this they should be instructed to a certain degree.
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If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation... to a continuance in union... I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate.
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A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful Land, traversing all the seas with the rich production of their Industry.
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The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.
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Among the most inestimable of our blessings is that ... of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support.
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For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
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Well, Page, I do wish the Devil had old Cooke, for I am sure I never was so tired of an old dull scoundrel in my life ... But the old-fellows say we must read to gain knowledge and gain knowledge to make us happy and be admired. Mere jargon! Is there any such thing as happiness in this world? No.
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War...is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.
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We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.
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When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier.
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Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
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The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone.
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I have no ambition to govern men it is a painful and thankless office.
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No race of kings has ever presented above one man of common sense in twenty generations.
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Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.
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Always take hold of things by the smooth handle grateful that they are not worse rather than the rough handle, bitter that they are not better.
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