The equal rights of man and the happiness of every individual are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that the core purpose of government is to ensure equal rights and individual happiness.
Thomas Jefferson's quote suggests that the primary role of any government is to uphold the equal rights of all individuals while ensuring that each person's pursuit of happiness is recognized as a legitimate goal. This reflects a foundational principle of democratic governance, highlighting the belief that justice and personal fulfillment should be at the forefront of political objectives.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about human rights.
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
βWe 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.
I had, by thirteen, developed a sort of Taoist hubris about my ability to control via non-control.
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
Maybe right and wrong did not move, but understanding of them did. The wrenching pain of walking the same path, even for a short space, tore away the willingness to judge.
How strange a thing is death, bringing to his knees, bringing to his antlers The buck in the snow . . . Life, looking out attentive from the eyes of the doe.
I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is.
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