“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work, and give it to those who will not.”
I can’t seem to find it in many places on the internet.
Seems like a pretty hypocritical thing for a slave owner to say.
For a more GQ style answer, this quote is listed as Jefferson’s in the brainy quote website.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasjeff122881.html
Although he did own slaves, he was not a proponent of slavery, and was more of an abolitionist.
This is liberal propaganda. By law, Jefferson could free only slaves who could be self-supporting. He inherited dozens of slaves. By all accounts they were treated well, and several enslaved men at Monticello could read and write.
According to this site,
That would be interesting if it was quoted in response to a philosophy that anyone actually advocated.
It doesn’t sound right. I can imagine him saying that about “liberty” or “the republic” but not about “the democracy.” In Jefferson’s heyday, the word democracy had a bad connotation, associated with mob rule. It wasn’t until the last few year so his life that the party he founded started to embrace the term. I don’t know that he himself ever used the term in a positive sense. The people behind Crafter Man’s link above have had no luck tracking this quotation to earlier than 1986.
Another supposed Jefferson quotation on democracy is “Information is the currency of democracy.” It’s highly questionable he said that either. The TJE dates to 1971.
Abraham Lincoln tells a story about an escaped slave he met. He asked her if she ran away because her master abused her. No, she replied, he treated me very well. He asked her if she ran away because he overworked his slaves. She again replied no. He finally asked her why she ran away. She replied, If you think he’s such a great master, why don’t you go down there and be his slave?
Back then in Virginia, you could free your slave without cause, and many people did. People didn’t because they needed them for their plantation to turn a profit. Without slave labor, you simply couldn’t live the life of a plantation owner.
We have to remember that Thomas Jefferson was a product of his time. Yes, he probably truly believed all men were created equal, but everyone knew he didn’t mean blacks. He wrote many tracts that today would be considered racists, but were probably the normal thinking back then.
Nor was slavery only a peculiar Southern institution. All thirteen states allowed slavery at the time of Independence. New York, for example, didn’t start freeing slaves until 1799. And, general emancipation wasn’t declared until 1827. Even after that, slaves had to first fulfill a 20 work bond with their former owner before they were freed.
Like some plantation owners, Jefferson said he wanted to free his slaves (or at least some of them) when he died, but debt made that impossible. Any slaves freed would simply be claimed by his debt holders. It wasn’t anything personal. It was business.
By the way, I too am drawing a blank about that particular quote. I haven’t found it in any of Jefferson’s main writings.
Is it somehow more true if Jefferson did write it, or if it’s onyl being attributed to him? Because that statement sounds incredibly dumb to me.
I think the rule you should go by is that when you are given a quotation from some important American political figure, ask the person giving it where it is found. If they can’t find the source for it, it’s probably a fake. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln are some of the most common supposed sources of fake quotations. Even if it’s a real quotation, so what? Why does that make it a useful statement? For any such quotation, the question you should ask is how this fits in with the rest of this person’s political philosophy. Once you understand this person’s philosophy, why is it true? If it was something said two hundred years ago, are the circumstances still relevant to today’s society? How does this fit into everything else you know and believe? Why should a single quotation be important?
It sounds like it’s a fake given the lack of any sources. Just as an opinion I would have guessed it was a quote drafted up by modern conservatives: the way the quote uses “the democracy” strikes me as a bit of an odd thing for someone in Jefferson’s time to have said, and in fact it’s a bit odd for anyone to say; it seems to imply high taxation and welfare are fatal specifically for democracies, which doesn’t really make much sense.
I’d check snopes.com. If you search on Jefferson, you’ll probably find it there. I seem to remember it coming up lately (I RSS snopes) but I’m too lazy to go looking myself.
I find that most of the stuff attributed to the “Founding Fathers” is misattributed. Somebody probably did say it, but not them.
Jefferson was a complex man. They all were. My theory is that you don’t get extraordinary leaders without exaggerated characteristics, both good and bad. Who among us would have the same courage to throw away his inheritance, many of his friends, and any chance for a calm life in order to start a brand new government, defying what was then one of the top two political powers on Earth (The UK versus France debate I won’t get into)?
In Jefferson you have a reclusive, brilliant, intellectual, spendthrift polymath who couldn’t figure out how to deal with slavery and left no heirs or legacy but lots of debt. On the other hand, he founded the Democratic Party. It’s had its ups and downs, but it’s kept us honest about the role of ordinary people in government.
Then you have Adams, equally brilliant but also patient and financially successful. He doesn’t get nearly enough credit for the things he did to help us found the nation. He couldn’t found a party, and he could be stubborn and tetchy, but he left a personal dynasty that included his son John Quincy (equally underrated).
I could go on. They all have magnificent flaws. So do modern politicians. We have to be tolerant. None of us is perfect.
Which part of that was “propaganda”?
It’s common enough to attribute quotations to famous men, and thus seek to validate or discredit the proposition by association. Lenin and Hitler are favourites.
Dumb? In what way? Please explain your feelings.
He seems to be saying that if enough people refused to be gainfully employed and you forced the individuals who did choose to work to support these people, the country would fail.
Do you disagree with this premise or do you interpret his statement another way?
If we start to discuss whether the statement is true (as opposed to whether Jefferson said it), it will turn this thread into a Great Debates thread.
Because . . . liberals don’t like Thomas Jefferson?
Say what? That doesn’t sound hypocritical to you?
Edit: I mean the real-language use of “hypocritical,” not the special Republican definition.
I find http://www.wikiquote.org/ to be a good source for verifying quotes.