The Tree of Liberty ANS

. Hi -- And now for something completely different.....  Quotes on freedom from Thomas Jefferson.
Find it here:  http://www.monticello.org/reports/quotes/liberty.html

--Kim


Home » Research & Collections » Reports and Research Tools »

 Liberty: Jefferson Quotations

1774 July. "The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time." (A Summary View of the Rights of British America, B.1.135)

1775 June 26-July 6. "Our attachment to no nation upon earth should supplant our attachment to liberty." (Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms, B.1.215)

1776 July 4. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." (Declaration of Independence, B.1.429)

1787 Nov. 13. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure." (to W. S. Smith, B.12.356)

1789 Mar. 24. "We have spent the prime of our lives in procuring [young men] the precious blessing of liberty. Let them spend theirs in shewing that it is the great parent of science and of virtue; and that a nation will be great in both always in proportion as it is free." (to Joseph Willard, B.14.699)

1791 Dec. 23. "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." (to Archibald Stuart, B.22.436)

1811 Mar. 28. "The last hope of human liberty in this world rests on us. We ought, for so dear a state to sacrifice every attachment and every enmity." (to William Duane, Ford 11:193)

1820 Dec. 26. "The disease of liberty is catching; those armies will take it in the south, carry it thence to their own country, spread there the infection of revolution and representative government, and raise its people from the prone condition of brutes to the erect altitude of man." (to Lafayette, Ford 12.190)

1820 Oct. 20. "The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave." (to Richard Rush, L&B.15.283)

1826 Jun. 24. "The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God." (to Roger Weightman, Writings 1517)

--Ann M. Lucas, Monticello Research Department, February 1996

Pictured: Eagle and star pattern from ceiling of Entrance Hall at Monticello; photographed by Edward Owen.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a longer form of one of the quotes:
Find it here: http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Thomas.Jefferson.Quote.EFEC

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And here's an even longer form of the same quote, with an explanation.  It seems to keep changing in meaning through these three renditions.... Interesting, isn't it?
Find it here: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_this_quote_from_Thomas_Jefferson_The_tree_of_liberty_must_be_refreshed_from_time_to_time_with_the_blood_of_patriots_and_tyrants_It_is_a_natural_manure_mean


It is a partial quote, actually. It is taken from a letter Jefferson wrote to William Smith in 1787 in reference to an uprising in Massachusetts after the American Revolution. A more full quote:

"Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Jefferson is referring, specifically, to the Shays' Rebellion. If you look at the context of the quote, it appears that Jefferson actually believed the men who took arms were essentially wrong about the facts, but he still considered them patriotic for making their voices heard. Jefferson felt it was important that the government be kept in check, even if those keeping them in check were not necessarily in the right. It wasn't being in the "right" that kept the people free, but rather the fact that they had a voice and used it.

The specific meaning to the last part of the quote, the piece most often quoted, isn't an incitement to violence against the state (which it has unfortunately been sometimes misconstrued to be), but rather seems an acceptance of some degree of violence as a necessary element to keeping freedom safe... a "necessary evil", if you will.

What is often missed is that Jefferson immediately preceded the most quoted part of the letter with his solution for the state: "to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and one more quote, with emphasis added by me:   http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson

and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate ; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.