Thomas Jefferson

[IrishHand]

This is from the new Bernstein biography of Thomas Jefferson which I felt was particularly applicable to the present time in this nation. Here is part of a letter he sent in 1798 after the passage of the Sedition Act:

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

Here is another Jefferson quote, one of my very favorites:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

ATTRIBUTION: THOMAS JEFFERSON (1743–1826), letter to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787.*The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, vol. 12, p. 356 (1955).

A related idea was later expressed by Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac in a speech to the French national assembly, January 16, 1793: “L’arbre de la liberté… croît lorsqu’il est arrosé du sang de toute espèce de tyrans (The tree of liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants),” Archives Parliamentaires de 1787 à 1860, vol. 57, p. 368 (1900).

And much earlier Tertullian had said: “Plures efficimur quotiens metimur a vobis; semen est sanguis Christianorum (We multiply whenever we are mown down by you; the blood of Christians is seed),” Apology, trans. T. R. Glover, pp. 226–27 (1931).

http://www.bartleby.com/73/1065.html