Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the principle that government should only exercise powers explicitly granted to it by the people.
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes that any actions taken by the government that go beyond the powers explicitly delegated to it by the constitution are inherently invalid. This reflects a fundamental belief in the rule of law and the limits of government authority, advocating for the protection of individual liberties against government overreach.
In practice
During a civic engagement seminar discussing the limits of government power.
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.
Many who think they are workers in politics are really merely tools.
I think, at the end of the day, especially for municipal elections, we see relatively low voter turnout. So the goal is to expand who sees themselves reflected in government, who's empowered to take the lead in politics.
Politics is the art of the possible; creativity is the art of the impossible.
We no longer live in an era in which foreign policymakers can claim to serve their nations' interests treating what happens to people in other countries as an afterthought... What happens to people in other countries matters. It matters to the welfare of our own nations and our own citizens.
And now we're suffering the logical culmination of all this: the largest group of government-hati ng, racist, homophobic, misogynistic know-nothing, climate-change denying, evolution-denyi ng, science-denying , anti-immigrant House Republicans in history, bent on taking America back to the 19th century.
For the Palestinians' efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.
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