We have already given in example one effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose from the Executive to the Legislative body
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of legislative power in controlling military actions. Jefferson advocates for a system of checks and balances to prevent war from being waged impulsively.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson argues that transferring the authority to declare war from the Executive branch to the Legislative body serves as a crucial check against the impulsive use of military force. By doing so, it ensures that elected representatives, who are accountable to the public, must deliberate and justify the need for war, reflecting the will and interests of the people rather than the whims of a single individual.
In practice
During a debate about military intervention, one might quote Jefferson to highlight the importance of legislative approval.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
βWe must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.
Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable β the art of the next best
France has no friends, only interests.
When facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag.
American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.
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