“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49.”

— Thomas Jefferson

There are no indications that Jefferson ever stated anything like this; slight variants of this statement seem to have become widely attributed to Jefferson only since its appearance in three books of 2004: The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey (2004) by Ken Schoolland, p. 235; Damn-ocracy — Government From Hell!: The Political, Economic And Money System (2004) by Wendall Dennis and Reason And Reality : A Novel (2004) by Mishrilal Jain, p. 232; see also info at Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Democracy_is_nothing_more_than_mob_rule.
Misattributed

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Thomas Jefferson 456

3rd President of the United States of America 1743–1826

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“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49.”

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