The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
REPUBLICANISM / AND ACTIVISM
In the great work which has been effected in America, no individual
has a right to take any great share to himself. Our people in a body
are wise, be-cause they are under the unrestrained and unperverted
operation of their own understanding. Those whom they have assigned to
the direction of their affairs, have stood with a pretty even front.
If any one of them was withdrawn, many others entirely equal, have
been ready to fill his place with as good abilities. A nation,
composed of such materials, and free in all its members from
distressing wants, furnishes hopeful implements for the interesting
experiment of self-government; and we feel that we are acting under
obligations not confined to the limits of our own society. It is
impossible not to be sensible that we are acting for all mankind; that
circumstances denied to others, but indulged to us, have imposed on us
the duty of proving what is the degree of freedom and self-government
in which a society may venture to leave its individual members. One
passage, in the paper you enclosed me, must be corrected. It is the
following, "and all say it was yourself more than any other
individual, that planned and established it," i.e., the
Constitution. I was in Europe when the Constitution was planned, and
never saw it till after it was established. On receiving it I wrote
strongly to Mr. Madison, urging the want of provision for the freedom
of religion, freedom of the press, trial by jury, habeas corpus, the
substitution of militia for a standing army, and an express
reservation to the States of all rights not specifically granted to
the Union. He accordingly moved in the first session of Congress for
these amendments, which were agreed to and ratified by the States as
they now stand. This is all the hand I had in what related to the
Constitution. Our predecessors made it doubtful how far even these
were of any value; for the very law which endangered your personal
safety, as well as that which restrained the freedom of the press,
were gross violations of them. However, it is still certain that
though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or
delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may
again rally and recall the people; they fix too for the people the
principles of their political creed.
to Joseph Priestley (Doctor), 19 June 1802
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