Here are six striking statements from the great Thomas Jefferson on how to properly govern a society. If we heeded these principles, we would become happy, wealthy, peaceful, and free again. If you read and contemplate nothing else today, read this: Were not this great country already divided into states, that division must be made, that each might do for itself what concerns itself directly, and what it can so much better do than a distant authority. Every state again is divided into counties, each to take care of what lies within its local bounds; each county again into townships or wards, to manage minuter details; and every ward into farms, to be governed each by its individual proprietor. The second statement: Divide the counties into wards of such size as that every citizen can attend, when called on, and act in person. Ascribe to them the government of their wards in all things relating to themselves exclusively: A justice, chosen by themselves, in each a constable, a military company, a patrol, a school, the care of their own poor, their own portion of the public roads, the choice of one or more jurors to serve in some court, and the delivery, within their own wards, of their own votes for all elective officers of higher spheres, [this] will relieve the county administration of nearly all its business, will have it better done, and by making every citizen an acting member of the government, and in the officers nearest and most interesting to him, will attached him by his strongest feelings to the independence of his country, and its republican constitution. Statement number three: Here, then, would be one of the advantages of the ward divisions I have proposed. The mayor of every ward, on a question like the present, would call his ward together, take the simple yea or nay of its members, convey these to the proper county court, who would hand on those of all its wards to the proper general authority; and the voice of the whole people would be thus fairly, fully, and peaceably expressed, discussed, and decided by the common reason of the society. Fourth: My proposition had for a further object, to impart to these wards those portions of self-government for which they are best qualified, by confiding to them the care of their poor, their roads, police, elections, the nomination of jurors, administration of justice in small cases, elementary exercises of militia, in short, to have made them little republics, with a Warden at the head of each, for all those concerns which, being under their eye, they would better manage than the larger republics of the county or state. Fifth: A general call of ward-meetings by their Wardens on the same day throughout the state would at any time produce the genuine sense of the people on any required point, and would enable the state to act in mass, as your people have so often done [in Massachusetts], and with so much effect, by their town meetings. And finally: The elementary republics of the wards, the county republics, the States republics, and the republic of the Union, would form a gradation of authorities, standing each on the basis of law, holding every one its delegates share of powers, and consisting truly a system of fundamental balances and checks for the government. Here every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward-republic, or of some of the higher ones, and feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day; when there shall not be a man in the State who will not be a member of some of its councils, great or small, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte. Take the time, folks, to contemplate these words and then to take a very deep and critical look at what our political system has transformed into. And remember, this ward system of Jeffersons was based on the Anglo-Saxon system, which was based on Moses system, which was given to him by God. Source: cited in W. Cleon Skousen, The Majesty of Gods Law, 530-532.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 05:00:47 +0000
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