Mark Gilroy

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Thomas Jefferson on America, Tyranny, Commerce, Alliances, and More

Thomas Jefferson

Born April 13, 1743

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It is quite evident in these immortal words that Thomas Jefferson is a historical giant for his thoughts on government – and a host of other topics.

Jefferson was a political philosopher, primary author of the Declaration of Independence, and our third president, serving two terms. His presidency was marked by the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the Louisiana Purchase. He is the only two term president to never veto a bill from Congress.

Jefferson was a true Renaissance Man and was accomplished in areas as diverse as horticulture, archeology, and architecture. He was a gadget inventor with a fondness for clocks and was a student of the Bible, though not known for his orthodoxy. Even after his presidency he kept busy, founding the University of Virginia – another of his singular achievements among his presidential colleagues.

Enjoy a dash of his thinking through the following quotes on happiness, the good life, attitudes, limited government, and more.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

Delay is preferable to error.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

 

John Adams on America, Democracy, Morality, and More

John Adams brilliant insights on America, democracy, morality, and a wide range of issues and ideas deserve more attention than this almost forgotten – and recently rediscovered – Founding Father has sometimes received.

Our first vice president and second president was John Adams, who stepped out of the shadows of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and other Founding Fathers in the modern consciousness with the surprise bestselling biography by David McCullough and the HBO miniseries based on it.

Here are just a few quotes from the Massachusetts school teacher, lawyer, and politician – who went to Harvard to study for the ministry at his father’s encouragement – and the father of a political dynasty, including his son, John Quincy Adams, the 6th President of the United States. But just a warning. Of all the Founding Fathers, perhaps none was more of a curmudgeon than Adams.

I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it.

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.

Be not intimidated… nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

Big Government: Pendulum or Runaway Train?

Ever since FDR “saved” the economy – either through his welfare and public works programs if you like his fiscal model or by entering World War II if you believe the country was going to turn around on the basis of a business cycle anyway – despite his inept handling of the Depression – the size and role of the federal government in the business life of America has continued to grow.

Truman was too busy fighting wars and dealing with new international realities with our Soviet allies to leave a huge mark on America Inc., but conservative president, DDE, built the interstate highway system with a heavy dose of liberal spending, a symbolic and tangible symbol of a more federally driven America economy.

JFK we hardly knew you. We’ll never know his spending agenda based on his short tenure, though his activism in other areas might lead us to believe he would have been big government in all ways.

Inspired by political activists like author John Steinbeck – and in a well-documented strategy to secure minority votes, LBJ attempted to build a ‘Great Society’ – a phrase he borrowed from Steinbeck – to further expand the government’s role and responsibility as the provider and protector of the people’s welfare.

Let’s break from this historical free for all for just a second. Everyone, including politicians of all stripes, is concerned with the welfare of “the people” and individual persons. Whether one cares is not what is being debated, though in the political world it is posited by big government proponents that if you don’t want government to take responsibility for people’s welfare you don’t care about people’s welfare. The fiscal conservative or political libertarian will argue that he or she cares just as much about the welfare of individuals, he or she just does not think government does a very good job of supplying it. They want an old school model that limits the role of government to good laws and national defense – and leaves individual welfare up to individual effort, which will be much more productive and efficacious in a free enterprise system the thinking goes.

But what happens when that doesn’t work, big government proponents ask? Some free enterprise advocates agree with having clearly defined and limited temporary aid measures in place – others argue for the “family and friends” need to save you program. But based on what we’ve seen so far in our historical foray, there really haven’t been too may free enterprisers in control, no matter what we might assume from party affiliation.

RMN actually toyed with price controls, which would made him a hero among Marxist ideologues and an enigma to his independent, puritanical forebears, but ultimately, he poured his attention on foreign policy and then shifted his focus to another set of problems that were a little more personal in nature.

JC. We hardly knew you. Stagnation and malaise were the order of the day. The result of bad business or too much government intervention? Carter wasn’t sure there was a possible solution from the government or private sector and suspected we might be headed for leaner days. He spoke about those suspicions a little too forthrightly and the electorate lost as much confidence in JC as in the country’s future.

That ushered in the reign of RWR, who was sure it was the latter, too much government intervention, that was the problem. No one in the media and not even his vice president believed in his “voodoo” economics, but he get elected. He cut capital gains taxes, eliminated and simplified regulations to doing business, and cut income taxes for the middle and upper middle classes. (He would have done the same for the lower and wealthiest classes but it is impossible to cut anything from nothing.) It can be argued that he restored America’s business star, setting the stage for the largest capital growth campaign in history and the rise of Bill Gates. What he didn’t do, however, was cut government spending. And it wasn’t just because he built up the military. Liberals and columnists – I would have said Liberal columnists but why be redundant? – bemoaned all the benefits he cut from the poor. Not true. He did occasionally cut government program increases but never spending.

GHB (W’s dad). We hardly knew you, either. I do recall H was kinder and gentler than Reagan – at least he said he was – and raised taxes to prove it despite the protests of lip readers to the contrary.

WJC got his butt kicked on socialized medicine early in his first term. His solution? Keep Hillary away from Congressional hearings and enjoy Reagan’s promised ‘peace dividend.’ Then he started experiencing the joy of balancing the budget and reducing the federal deficit so much he went out and tweaked some welfare policies so that they became workfare policies. For the first time in 60 years people were involuntarily cut from welfare rolls. Bill might be the last and the only fiscal conservative of the past 100 years. Deep down, I suspect that still bothers him.

GWB. Or just W. A man of principle, faith, and profligate spending habits. He and the man who followed him, BHO, are architects and builders of an expanded role for government through TARP(s) that might have made FDR’s head spin. Even the German socialists are confused. When they throw money at economic problems it is at least to save unnecessary jobs. In America’s iteration of corporate welfare, it is to eliminate jobs and save companies.

The latest Obama move has been to appoint a ‘Special Master for Compensation’ to oversee executive and employee pay at companies that accepted government bailout money. Any wonder so many are fighting like crazy to give this ‘free’ money back? Any wonder Hugo Chavez, left-wing socialist president of Venezuela, claims he is more right wing than Obama?

So is the size and scope of the federal government cyclical – a pendulum that is simply on a high note of growth? Or is it a runaway train navigating hair-pin turns as adroitly as possible?

If these economic days are tough on your personal welfare and you see a bright shining light ahead, it might mean there is hope at the end of the tunnel for you. Or it might mean you better jump off the track in a hurry if you don’t want to get hit!