Jefferson’s definition of “liberty” and “republic”

Jefferson authored the Declaration of Independence.  He was one of the delegates sent to negotiate the peace treaty with the British.  He was there when your government was created.

Perhaps he knew more about the purpose of government than today’s pundits claim to know.

If his definitions are different than what the Constitution intended, then his acts on behalf of government were  fraudulently extorted for some other purpose.

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 4 April 1819:

 I will however essay the two definitions which you say are more particularly interesting at present: I mean those of the terms liberty & Republic, aware however that they have been so multifariously applied as to convey no precise idea to the mind. Of Liberty then I would say that, in the whole plenitude of it’s extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will: but rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’; because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual. I will add secondly that a pure republic is a state of society in which every member, of mature and sound mind, has an equal right of participation, personally, in the direction of the affairs of the society. Such a regimen is obviously impracticable beyond the limits of an encampment, or of a very small village—when numbers, distance, or force, oblige them to act by deputy, then their government continues republican in proportion only as the functions they still exercise in person, are more or fewer, and as in those exercised by deputy the right of appointing their deputy is pro hâc vice only, or for more or fewer purposes, or for shorter or longer terms.

You do not have liberty.

You do not have a republic.

If you do nothing to free yourself, you will suffer the consequences.

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