Thomas Jefferson Justice Quotations

I believe that justice is instinct and innate; the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as the threat of feeling, seeing and hearing.

The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded, are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us.

The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain.

We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

If the question [before justices of the peace] relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact.

Though you cannot see, when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of [any difficult situation] in the easiest manner possible...

What justice would there be to take this life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.

The provisions we have made [for our government] are such as please ourselves; they answer the substantial purposes of government and of justice, and other purposes than these should not be answered.

War is not the best engine for us to resort to; nature has given us one in our commerce, which if properly managed, will be a better instrument for obliging the interested nations of Europe to treat us with justice.

[A] spirit of justice and friendly accomodation...is our duty and our interest to cultivate with all nations.

Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens...are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion...No man shall be compelled to frequent or support religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively.

The God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?

The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.

Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us.

The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us.

We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery.-Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them.

It is not to the moderation and justice of others we are to trust for fair and equal access to market with out productions, or for our due share in the transportation of them; but to our own means of independence, and the firm will to use them.

No person shall be restrained of his liberty but by regular process from a court of justice, authorized by a general law. . . . On complaint of an unlawful imprisonment to any judge whatsoever, he shall have the prisoner immediately brought before him and shall discharge him if his imprisonment be unlawful. The officer in whose custody the prisoner is shall obey the order of the judge, and both judge and officer shall be responsible civilly and criminally for a failure of duty herein.

The constitution has divided the powers of government into three branches, Legislative, Executive and Judiciary, lodging each with a distinct magistracy. The Legislative it has given completely to the Senate and House of Representatives. It has declared that the Executive powers shall be vested in the President, submitting special articles of it to a negative by the Senate, and it has vested the Judiciary power in the courts of justice, with certain exceptions also in favor of the Senate.

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion.