All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Interpretation
Majority rule must respect the rights of the minority to avoid oppression.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of balancing the will of the majority with the rights of the minority. He argues that while the majority should have the power to make decisions, those decisions must be reasonable and just, ensuring that the equal rights of the minority are protected to prevent oppression and injustice.
In practice
In a speech about civil rights, one might quote Jefferson to emphasize the need for equality under the law.
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.
I started out thinking of America as highways and state lines. As I got to know it better, I began to think of it as rivers.
Analysis brings no curative powers in its train; it merely makes us conscious of the existence of an evil, which, oddly enough, is consciousness.
The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority.
Freedom is the power to create out of nothing, the power of the spirit to create out of itself.
Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others concerned with him have done evil! If a man has acted right, he has done well, though along; if wrong, the sanction of all mankind will not justify him.
Remember that everyone's life is measured by the power that individual has to make the world better-this is all life is.
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