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"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1791
"It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1797
[To my fellow Americans and anybody else here joining in the celebrations: happy Independence Day!]
(no subject)
De Tocqueville wrote of a sense of voluntary association for the public good; I see much evidence still of this by private citizens, but wonder how much care for the public good remains in our population as a whole, and among our political servants in particular.
Our experiment in partial liberty is still exciting, but the golden aura surrounding the United States as it was exhibited to me in my education after the war has worn off. My first history textbooks were published in 1948, and presented the United States as shining and near-perfect, as I remember them from this distance.
I still can be profoundly moved by the words of those imperfect men and women who cobbled together the United States out of Enlightenment ideas and some other strange ingredients. I'm happy that our experiment in republicanism continues. Thanks again for posting the two Jefferson quotations.