The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE / FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
The kind invitation I receive from you, on the part of the citizens
of the city of Washington, to be present with them at their
celebration on the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence, as
one of the surviving signers of an instrument pregnant with our own,
and the fate of the world, is most flattering.
I should, indeed,
with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations
personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies,
who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we
were to make for our country, between submission or the sword; and to
have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that our fellow citizens,
after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve
the choice we made. May it be to the world, what I believe it will be,
(to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the
signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish
ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and
to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form
which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded
exercise of reason and freedom, of opinion. All eyes are opened, or
opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of
science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that
the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor
a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by
the grace of God.
to Roger C. Weightman, 24 June 1826
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