Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.
Tag: Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826), U.S. Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd U.S. President.
Uniformity
Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.
Damaging effect of vote fraud
I could think of no worse example for nations abroad, who for the first time were trying to put free electoral procedures into effect, than that of the United States wrangling over the results of our presidential election, and even suggesting that the presidency itself could be stolen by thievery at the ballot box.
Democracy equals mob rule
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
Remaining free
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well organized and armed militia is their best security.
Wise governance
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity.
Public debt
I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.
Enemies of the people
The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.
Degeneracy in the populace kills freedom
The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.
Purpose of just laws
Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves.