"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-Thomas Jefferson, proposed Virginia Constitution, June 1776
"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."
-Thomas Jefferson, motto found among his papers
"Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master!"
-Thomas Jefferson
"When the government fears the People, that is Liberty. When the People fear the Government, that is tyranny."
-Thomas Jefferson
"The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."
-Thomas Jefferson
"[The] governor [is] constitutionally the commander of the militia of the State, that is to say, of every man in it able to bear arms."
-Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms... the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William S. Smith, 1787
"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks."
-Thomas Jefferson, Encyclopedia of Thomas Jefferson, 318, Foley, Ed. reissued 1967
"Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us."
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to F. W. Gilmer, 1816
"Men by their constitution are naturally divided into two parties. 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2dly those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests."
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to H. Lee, 1824
"...when all government... in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."
-Thomas Jefferson, 1821
"No Freeman shall be debarred the use of arms in his own lands or tenements."
-Thomas Jefferson, from the Virginia Constitution, Third Draft
"The constitutions of most of our states [and of the United States] assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property and freedom of the press."
-Thomas Jefferson
"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation."
-Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Letter, September 20, 1810
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility, against every form of tyranny, over the mind of man."
-Thomas Jefferson
"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion."
-Thomas Jefferson
"On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12 June 1823
"The only way Governments can induce citizens to surrender their rights is convincing them that by doing so, they will gain a measure of safety in exchange"
-Thomas Jefferson
"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."
-Thomas Jefferson to W. Jarvis, 1820
"None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important, but especially so at a moment when rights the most essential to our welfare have been violated."
-Thomas Jefferson
"Enlighten people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
-Thomas Jefferson