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
“No, my friend, the way to have good and safe government is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the function he is competent to.
“Let the National Government be entrusted with the defence of the nation and its foreign and federal relations; the State governments with the civil rights, laws, police and administration of what concerns the State generally; the counties with the local concerns of the counties, and each ward direct the interests within itself.
“It is by dividing and subdividing these republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations, until it ends in the administration of every man's farm by himself; by placing under every one what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best.”
(
Thomas Jefferson
, Letter to Joseph C. Cabell
Letters
, p. 1388. 1816.)
Related Categories
Constitution
Constitution: Limits Government
State and Local Government