The tree of liberty... (Quotation)
"I do not know whether it is to
yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new
constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet
three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles
in it: and very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read
in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have
sufficed to set me against a Chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if
I had ever been disposed towards one: and what we have always read of the
elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one
continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering
lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and
model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at
length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers
themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have
believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever
exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce
an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's
motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should
ever be 20. years without such a rebellion.[1]
The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong
will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they
misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy,
the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states
independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one
rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country ever existed a
century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's
liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people
preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set
them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to
time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure. Our
Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and
in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in
order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution
is accepted." - Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Paris,
13 Nov. 1787[2]
- ↑
This sentence has possibly been misquoted as "every generation needs
a new revolution."
- ↑
PTJ
12:356-7. Letterpress copy at the Library of Congress. A transcription of this letter
from Ford is available online as well.
- Monticello Podcast: Jefferson's Words: Three Letters on the new
U.S. Constitution
includes audio of the letter that contains this quote, as read by Bill
Barker, who interprets Thomas Jefferson at Colonial Williamsburg.
- Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government: Revolution and Reformation.
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