“A people incapable of successful self government finally will be ruled by despots”
—txrangerette
Self-Government
“The object of the republican form of government and of the principles that are essential to that form, is to enable a people to govern themselves to the most practicable extent possible. Not every nation of people are capable of self-government, and many expected the experiment of the Founding Fathers to fail. But it did not fail, and the experiment proved that an educated and enlightened people are capable of self-government. The question remains, however, the extent to which government by the people themselves may be extended.”
—Thomas Jefferson
The Foundation of Self-Government
“Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.” —Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801. ME 3:320
“At the formation of our government, many had formed their political opinions on European writings and practices, believing the experience of old countries, and especially of England, abusive as it was, to be a safer guide than mere theory. The doctrines of Europe were, that men in numerous associations cannot be restrained within the limits of order and justice, but by forces physical and moral, wielded over them by authorities independent of their will. Hence their organization of kings, hereditary nobles, and priests.” —Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:440
Qualifications for Self-Government
“The qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. They are the result of habit and long training.” —Thomas Jefferson to Edward Everett, 1824. ME 16:22
“[If a] people [are] so demoralized and depraved as to be incapable of exercising a wholesome control, their reformation must be taken up ab incunabulis. Their minds [must] be informed by education what is right and what wrong, [must] be encouraged in habits of virtue and deterred from those of vice by the dread of punishments, proportioned indeed, but irremissible. In all cases, [they must] follow truth as the only safe guide and eschew error which bewilders us in one false consequence after another in endless succession. These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure of order and good government.” —Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1819. ME 15:234
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October 11, 1798 John Adams