Thomas Jefferson States Quotations

The construction applied ... to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power ... ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.

The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state.

All the States but our own are sensible that knowlege is power.

It is (our) duty . . . to pay especial attention to the principles of government which shall be inculcated therein (at the University), and to provide that none shall be inculcated which are incompatible with those on which the Constitutions of this State, and of the United States were genuinely based, in the common opinion; and for this purpose it may be necessary to point out specially where these principles are to be found legitimately developed.

The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone.

The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government

The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.

[An] act of the Congress of the United States... which assumes powers... not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void and of no force.

Man is not made for the State but the State for man and it derives its just powers only from the consent of the governed.

The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power not longer susceptible of any definition.

We could in the United States make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good.

The construction applied . . . to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power . . . ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.

The constitution of the United States is the result of the collected wisdom of our country.

If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation... to a continuance in union... I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate.

The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what merchant, what laborer ever sees a tax gatherer of the United States?

I trust there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian.

My general plan would be to make the States one as to everything connected with foreign nations and several as to everything purely domestic.