Last updated: October 2, 2023
Place
Northeast Portico
NPS Antoine Thomas
Quick Facts
Location:
Thomas Jefferson Memorial
Designation:
Historic Site
Amenities
1 listed
Wheelchair Accessible
The quotes below show, in their entirety, the correspondents and writings of Thomas Jefferson that appear as excerpts on the northeast chamber panel.
"But let them [members of the parliament of Great Britain] not think to exclude us from going to other markets, to dispose of those commodities which they cannot use, nor41 to supply those wants which they cannot supply. Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own. The god who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them." - "A Summary View of the Rights of British America"
"For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever . . . ." - Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII
"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. . . ." - Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII
"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them." - Jefferson's Autobiography
"Preach, my dear sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people." - Jefferson to George Wythe, August 13, 1786
"It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan." - Jefferson to George Washington, January 4, 1786