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In his post #1,630 Kalamata repeats a beautiful quote from Thomas Jefferson, 1820:

"I regret that I am to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiniess to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it.
If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by secession, they would pause before they would perpetuate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world.
To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect."

To which Kalamata responds: "Joey's statements are always deceptive.
A few years later, Jefferson wrote this:"

"On every question of [of the constitution,] carry ourselves back to the time when the constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."

So here, perhaps inadvertently, Kalamata posted two quotes from Thomas Jefferson which support my arguments and condemn Kalamata's.
In the first Jefferson condemns secession and praises Union.
In the second, Jefferson praises the core essence of conservatism: Founders' Original Intent.

But typical of Democrats Kalamata tells us that Jefferson praised secession, condemned the Union and insisted on meanings the Founders never expressed!

>>BroJoeK wrote: "In his post #1,630 Kalamata repeats a beautiful quote [by Joey] from Thomas Jefferson, 1820:

"I regret that I am to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiniess to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by secession, they would pause before they would perpetuate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect." -- Thomas Jefferson ltr to John Holmes 22 April 1820."

>>BroJoeK wrote: "To which Kalamata responds: "Joey's statements are always deceptive. A few years later, Jefferson wrote this:"

"On every question of construction [of the constitution,] carry ourselves back to the time when the constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." [Letter to William Johnson, from Monticello, June 12, 1823]

>>BroJoeK wrote: "So here, perhaps inadvertently, Kalamata posted two quotes from Thomas Jefferson which support my arguments and condemn Kalamata's. In the first Jefferson condemns secession and praises Union. In the second, Jefferson praises the core essence of conservatism: Founders' Original Intent. But typical of Democrats Kalamata tells us that Jefferson praised secession, condemned the Union and insisted on meanings the Founders never expressed!

Like I said, Joey's posts are always deceptive. He is pretending that Jefferson was opposed to secession, but, to the contrary, Jefferson saw nullification and secession as the ONLY way to keep an out-of-control federal government in check. The greedy dictator, Abraham Lincoln, destroyed those checks and balances, leaving the nations' posterity saddled with an ever-increasing national debt (about $240 trillion, and counting,) as well as out-of-control regulations that lord over almost every aspect of our lives.

The first statement by Jefferson -- the one Joey originally posted -- is the last paragraph in a longer lamentation Jefferson wrote on the Missouri Compromise, which Jefferson saw as a usurpation of power by the federal government via its intrusion into the internal affairs of sovereign states – tyrannical actions which he believed could eventually tear the nation apart.

The letter I posted, an 1823 letter to William Johnson, reinforced Jefferson's understanding that the Constitution was not to be interpreted according to the whims of mere men -- of congress, the president, or the judiciary --, but rather according to the construction established in the Federal and State conventions.

This is Jefferson's full 1820 letter to John Holmes:

"I thank you, dear Sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question. It is a perfect justification to them. I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers, or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. But this momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of property (for so it is misnamed) is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected: and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one State to another, would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually happier, and proportionally facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burthen on a greater number of coadjutors. An abstinence, too, from this act of power, would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress to regulate the condition of the different descriptions of men composing a State. This certainly is the exclusive right of every State, which nothing in the constitution has taken from them, and given to the General Government. Could Congress, for example, say, that the non-freemen of Connecticut shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other State?"
"I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect."
[Letter to John Holmes, from Monticello, April 22, 1820, in Thomas J. Randolph, "Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of Thomas Jefferson Vol IV." Gray and Bowen, 2nd Ed, 1830, pp.323-324]

Like I said, Joey's posts are always deceptive.

Mr. Kalamata