Force and Corruption I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others. --Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811. ME 13:18 Force [is] the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism. --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801. ME 3:321 I know that the passions of men will take their course, that they are not to be controlled but by despotism, and that this melancholy truth is the pretext for despotism. --Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1805. ME 11:71 Either force or corruption has been the principle of every modern government. --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1796. Force cannot change right. --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:43 With the laborers of England generally, does not the moral coercion of want subject their will as despotically to that of their employer, as the physical constraint does the soldier, the seaman, or the slave? --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME 14:183 [When] the principle that force is right is become the principle of the nation itself, they would not permit an honest minister, were accident to bring such an one into power, to relax their system of lawless piracy. --Thomas Jefferson to Caesar Rodney, 1810. (*) ME 12:358
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000
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