It is said with us to be unattainable. All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government. Can a democratic assembly, who annually revolve in the mass of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good?
Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention, v. 1, p. 299. (June 19, 1787)
Debates of the Federal Convention (1787)
“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”
Letter to Edward Carrington, Paris (27 May 1788) PTJ, 13:208-9 http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/natural-progress-things-quotation
1780s
Source: Letters of Thomas Jefferson
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Thomas Jefferson 456
3rd President of the United States of America 1743–1826Related quotes
"Why Liberty?”, in the Chicago Tribune (30 January 1927)
1920s
Online and on the Bench, the ‘Tweeter Laureate of Texas’ Is All About Judicial Engagement (September 17, 2015)
Interview track from Charles Manson Sings (2006)
The Rights of the Colonists (1772)
Iowa straw poll speech, August 14, 1999. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/99_08_14strawpoll.htm.
1999
Address to National Press Club in Washington DC, as quoted in Freedom and Union (April 1952)
Variants:
Most people consider the things which government does for them to be social progress, but they consider the things government does for others as socialism.
As quoted in Politics and Policies : The Continuing Issues (1970) by Duane W. Hill, p. 170.
Many people consider the things which government does for them to be social progress, but they consider the things government does for others as socialism.
As quoted in Encarta Book of Quotations (2000) edited by Bill Swainson, p. 969
1950s
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