"... we must
not let
our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election
between
economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such
debts,
as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our
necessaries
and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings
and
our creeds...we will have no time to think, no means of calling our
mismanagers
to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to
rivet
their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is
the tendency of all human government. A departure from principle in one
instance becomes a precedent. ... till the bulk of society is reduced
to
be mere automatons of misery. .. And the fore-horse of this frightful
team
is public debt. Taxation follows
that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.
What more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? .... 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..... I deem the essential principles of our government [to be]....., peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies ... economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burdened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith ; .... these principles .... should be our creed and our political faith ....and should we wander from them in moments of error ... let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety. In questions
of power,
then , let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down
from
mischief by the chains of the Constitution." Thomas
Jefferson |