Democrats consider the people as the safest depository of power in the last resort; they cherish them, therefore, and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent.
Interpretation
Democrats believe that ultimately power resides with the people, and they aim to empower them accordingly.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson expresses the fundamental belief of democracy that political power should rest with the people. He emphasizes that the people's capacity for self-governance should be respected and that they should be entrusted with decision-making authority, reflecting a deep appreciation for democratic principles and the importance of individual agency in governance.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about civic responsibility and voting during an election campaign.
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
We 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.
He told us he was going to take crime out of the streets. He did. He took it into the damn White House.
Nations do not distrust each other because they are armed. They are armed because they distrust each other.
They are longing for a war with Iran. Iran is no more a harm to us than was Iraq or Afghanistan. They invented an enemy, they tell lies, lies, lies. The New York Times goes along with their lies, lies, lies. And they don't stop. When the public that's lied to 30 times a day it's apt to believe the lies, is not it?
Look: I don't want to live with a nuclear Iran. I would like to make it uncomfortable for them to seek it.
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'
Political campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster.
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