|
Jefferson Govt power
Thomas Jefferson
Letters on Liberty and Power
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.1 This is so because those who gain positions of power tend always to extend the bounds of it. Power must always be constrained or limited else it will increase to the level that it will be despotic.
Jefferson wrote to Judge Spencer Roane in 1819, "It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also ...."2 With this principle of necessary limitation in mind, Jefferson declared "that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest upon inference."3
__________________
Rich Belloff
|