Is that what the ruckus in the Capitol Bldg was all about?! LOL!
I guess I am not surprised. Yes. I bet they are getting jumpy.
They do remember Thomas Jefferson's rather blood curdling populist pronouncment,
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
The full quote gives some context to his point, which he makes in very blunt terms, speaking of Shay's Rebellion, and noting that its recurrence in our republic would likely be relatively infrequent "in a century or two" and modest in scope " a few lives ". But necessary as a kind of natural component for the maintenance of liberty.
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion [Shays's Rebellion]. The people cannot be all, and always, well-informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had thirteen States independent for eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each State. What country ever before existed a century and a half without a rebellion. And what country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that the people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms! The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."Letter from T. Jefferson to Col. William S. Smith, Paris, November 13, 1787
