I discharge every person under punishment or prosecution under the Sedition Law, because I considered, and now consider, that law to be a nullity as absolute and palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image.
Interpretation
Thomas Jefferson expresses his belief that the Sedition Law is fundamentally invalid and unjust.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson asserts that he views the Sedition Law as utterly illegitimate, equating its enforcement to an absurd directive to worship a golden idol. Jefferson's perspective reflects his commitment to individual liberties and his rejection of laws that he deems oppressive or contrary to fundamental rights.
In practice
During a speech on civil liberties, one might reference this quote to emphasize the importance of rejecting unjust laws.
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.
WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity.
How can I keep my soul in me, so that it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise it high enough, past you, to other things?
God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire.
Social reality is so complicated that, once you join one team or the other, you become specialized in detecting certain patterns, but you become blind to other patterns.
The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.
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