Democrats consider the people as the safest depository of power in the last resort; they cherish them, therefore, and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent.
Interpretation
Democrats believe that ultimately power resides with the people, and they aim to empower them accordingly.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson expresses the fundamental belief of democracy that political power should rest with the people. He emphasizes that the people's capacity for self-governance should be respected and that they should be entrusted with decision-making authority, reflecting a deep appreciation for democratic principles and the importance of individual agency in governance.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about civic responsibility and voting during an election campaign.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
We must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.
Politics abhors a vacuum, and Asian countries will gravitate towards China if U.S. influence is perceived as declining.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
Jerusalem is united, will never be divided again.
We cannot improve on the system of government handed down to us by the founders of the Republic. There is no way to improve upon that. But what we can do is to find new ways to implement that system and realize our destiny.
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