14 May 2010
Thomas Jefferson says...
"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare...To consider the latter phrase...as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please...Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect." ––Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on National Bank, 1791
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nice! I'm purposely learning more about the Founding Fathers and the beginning of America. I did a research paper on Benjamin Franklin's political activity. Now, I'm doing a paper for school on the difference between a democracy and a republic...how people such as Thomas Jefferson intended to found a republic (where individual rights, as well as the rights of the minority, are respected) while Americans usually think that we are in a democracy (where the minority has no voice, the majority is always assumed to be correct). It's very interesting.
Anyways, good quote!
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