[The Federal Convention] is really an assembly of demigods.
Interpretation
Jefferson describes the Founding Fathers as near-divine figures shaping American democracy.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson expresses his admiration for the delegates at the Federal Convention, considering them extraordinary individuals who possess wisdom and vision akin to demigods. This metaphor highlights the immense responsibility they held in crafting the new nation's framework and how their abilities and insights were unprecedented in the context of their time.
In practice
In a discussion about American history, this quote can emphasize the qualities needed for effective governance.
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.
Our Congresses consist of Christians. In their private life they are true to every obligation of honor; yet in every session they violate them all, and do it without shame. Because honor to party is above honor to themselves.
I can't admit to myself that the creation of a Palestinian state won't happen. What I know is that with each passing year it gets more and more difficult to happen, not least because there is more and more bloodshed, generation upon generation.
People finally understood that the role of the social-democratic party rests on its conscious leadership of the mass struggle against the existing society, a struggle that must reckon with the vital, necessary conditions of capitalist society.
What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols.
Of what does politics consist except the making of imperfect decisions, many of them unjust and quite a few of them deadly?
I draw a very clear distinction between populism and democracy.
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