Thomas Jefferson on The Endeavor to Secure Rights

Self-evident truth that carries with it the force to change our way of thinking and in turn change the way we govern.

clipped from etext.virginia.edu "In endeavors to improve our situation, we should never despair." --Thomas Jefferson to John Quincy Adams, 1817. ME 15:148 "The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, [and] we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Clay, 1790. ME 8:4 "Instead of that liberty which takes root and growth in the progress of reason, if recovered by mere force or accident, it becomes with an unprepared people a tyranny still of the many, the few, or the one." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1815. ME 14:245 "Most [revolutions] have been [closed] by a subversion of that liberty [they were] intended to establish." --Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1784. ME 4:218, Papers 7:106