Day: November 7, 2012

Jefferson on Religion

by
Jefferson had no use for religious leaders and many times in his letters made it clear religion should be a private affair and and be kept out of politics and that the only way to know a person’s true religious beliefs was by how they lived, not by what they said. Read more

Read more

Jefferson on Change

by
Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816 Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; Read more

Read more