Here are the quotations from Jefferson and Washington using the word “experiment.”
“We have no interests nor passions different from those of our fellow citizens. We have the same object: the success of representative government. Nor are we acting for ourselves alone, but for the whole human race. The event of our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with self-government. The eyes of suffering humanity are fixed on us with anxiety as their only hope, and on such a theatre, for such a cause, we must suppress all smaller passions and local considerations.” —Thomas Jefferson to Gov. Hall, 1802.
“I am not discouraged by [a] little difficulty; nor have I any doubt that the result of our experiment will be, that men are capable of governing themselves without a master.” —Thomas Jefferson to T. B. Hollis, 1787. ME 6:156
“The full experiment of a government democratical, but representative, was and is still reserved for us. The idea... has been carried by us more or less into all our legislative and executive departments; but it has not yet, by any of us, been pushed into all the ramifications of the system, so far as to leave no authority existing not responsible to the people; whose rights, however, to the exercise and fruits of their own industry can never be protected against the selfishness of rulers not subject to their control at short periods... My most earnest wish is to see the republican element of popular control pushed to the maximum of its practicable exercise. I shall then believe that our government may be pure and perpetual.” —Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1816. ME 15:65
“[General Washington] has often declared to me that he considered our new Constitution as an experiment on the practicability of republican government, and with what dose of liberty man could be trusted for his own good; that he was determined the experiment should have a fair trial, and would lose the last drop of his blood in support of it.” —Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 1814. ME 14:51
“I have no fear, but that the result of our experiment will be, that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master. Could the contrary of this be proved, I should conclude either that there is no God, or that He is a malevolent being.” —Thomas Jefferson to David Hartley, 1787. ME 6:151
“No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth.” —Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804. ME 11:33
“Nor was it uninteresting to the world that an experiment should be fairly and fully made whether freedom of discussion, unaided by power, is not sufficient for the propagation and protection of truth: whether a government conducting itself in the true spirit of its constitution with zeal and purity and doing no act which it would be unwilling the whole world should witness can be written down by falsehood and defamation. The experiment has been tried; [we] have witnessed the scene; our fellow citizens have looked on, cool and collected. They saw the latent source from which these outrages proceeded; they gathered around their public functionaries, and when the Constitution called them to the decision by suffrage, they pronounced their verdict, honorable to those who had served them and consolatory to the friend of man who believes he may be intrusted with his own affairs.” —Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:381
“Both of our political parties, at least the honest portion of them, agree conscientiously in the same object: the public good; but they differ essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that good. One side believes it best done by one composition of the governing powers, the other by a different one. One fears most the ignorance of the people; the other the selfishness of rulers independent of them. Which is right, time and experience will prove. We think that one side of this experiment has been long enough tried and proved not to promote the good of the many, and that the other has not been fairly and sufficiently tried. Our opponents think the reverse. With whichever opinion the body of the nation concurs, that must prevail.” —Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:52
“Unless the mass retains sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust. Whether our Constitution has hit on the exact degree of control necessary, is yet under experiment.” —Thomas Jefferson to M. van der Kemp, 1812. ME 13:136
“Though the experiment has not yet had a long enough course to show us from which quarter encroachments are most to be feared, yet it is easy to foresee, from the nature of things, that the encroachments of the State governments will tend to an excess of liberty which will correct itself,... while those of the General Government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day instead of working its own cure, as all experience shows.” —Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1791. ME 8:276
“This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force.” —Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1796.
“No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.” —Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804. ME 11:33
“Conscious that there was not a truth on earth which I feared should be known, I have lent myself willingly as the subject of a great experiment, which was to prove that an administration, conducting itself with integrity and common understanding, cannot be battered down even by the falsehoods of a licentious press, and consequently still less by the press as restrained within the legal and wholesome limits of truth. This experiment was wanting for the world to demonstrate the falsehood of the pretext that freedom of the press is incompatible with orderly government. I have never, therefore, even contradicted the thousands of calumnies so industriously propagated against myself. But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to restore it to its strength by recalling it within the pale of truth. Within that, it is a noble institution, equally the friend of science and of civil liberty.” —Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Seymour, 1807. ME 11:155
“. . . . I envy not the present generation the glory of throwing away the fruits of their fathers’ sacrifices of life and fortune, and of rendering desperate the experiment which was to decide ultimately whether man is capable of self-government. This treason against human hope will signalize their epoch in future history as the counterpart of the medal of their predecessors.” —Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1820. ME 15:247
And, from George Washington:
“Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human Nature.” - George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” - George Washington
After over 200 years its no longer an experiment, it is in fact a country and my country....
I have said for a long time that if it takes until May to actually pay all the taxes that have been laid on you,(Tax freedom day) you are a slave for those months, and no one else seems to see it that way....so, for me in my old age, we are 1/2 slave and 1/2 free...but I have know better in my years...