“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” –Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816. ME 14:384
“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within 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.”[Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819]
“That liberty[is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone.”[Thomas Jefferson to Horatio Gates, 1798. ME 9:441]
“A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.”[Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:209, Papers 1:134]