Home
My Purpose
Topics
The Constitution
Education
Secret Combinations
Our Decline
Money
Only a Virtuous People
War
Most Recently Added
More...
Founding Documents
The Declaration of Independence
The Constitution
The Bill of Rights
The Articles of Confederation
The Magna Carta
Other
Other Resources
Recommended Reading
Authors
What Others Are Saying
How You Can Help
Quote
“The elementary republics of the wards, the county republics, the State republics, and the republic of the Union, would form a gradation of authorities, standing each on the basis of law, holding every one its delegated share of powers, and constituting 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 one 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.
”
(
Thomas Jefferson
, in a letter to Samuel Kercheval
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson
, 15:38. 1816.)
Related Categories
State and Local Government