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.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of constant vigilance to maintain a republican government.
Thomas Jefferson highlights the significant contributions of patriots who worked to restore the republican nature of the government. He stresses that to keep the government aligned with republican values, it is crucial for the citizenry to remain actively watchful and engaged in political affairs, as complacency can lead to the erosion of democratic principles.
In practice
A speaker at a civic meeting could use this quote to encourage community engagement.
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.
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.
There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
There’s nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht.
When great powers fade, as they inevitably must, it's normally for one of two reasons. Some powers exhaust themselves through overreach abroad, underinvestment at home, or a mixture of the two. This was the case for the Soviet Union. Other powers lose their privileged position with the emergence of new, stronger powers.
There is a tendency in all parties, when they have been for a long time in possession of power, to augment it.
I tried to contribute to the defeat of the Soviets. If I contributed 1%, it is 1% of something enormous.
The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.
Under its current form, that is imperialism-controlled, debt is a cleverly managed re-conquest of Africa, aiming at subjugating its growth and development through foreign rules. Thus, each one of us becomes the financial slave, which is to say a true slave.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.