Posts Tagged ‘thomas jefferson’

Decoding the Declaration of Independence

Posted: July 6, 2023 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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It has been argued by many progressives that the Declaration of Independence has absolutely no legal value.  That is true.  All legal power and authority for the government of the United States flows from the Constitution.  However, The Declaration of Independence very eloquently conveys the moral and philosophical foundation at the very core of the founding of the United States. 

Thomas Jefferson did not write a truly original document when he wrote the Declaration.  He chose to base that document mainly on the writings of John Locke.  That was because Locke based his most influential works, Two Treatises of Government, primarily on Natural Law.

As you can see from the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, Natural Law is the very foundation of the most famous breakup letter ever written.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

This next quote states quite clearly that Natural Rights are the very foundation of the Declaration of Independence.

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

This next quote is the most important for two reasons.  First, because Jefferson states that for governments to be legitimate, they must derive their powers solely from the consent from the governed.   Second, that the people have the right to tear down a government that is harmful to the natural rights of the people.

that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

This last quote warns us that we must have very valid reasons before we throw off the yoke of an oppressive government.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.

An un-elective despotism is exactly the government we have now

Posted: January 12, 2023 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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As I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed I came across the following fragment of a quote from Thomas Jefferson, “An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.”  It appeared to me that Jefferson accurately predicted a couple hundred years into the future because his quote almost perfectly sunned up conditions existing here in the United States now.  The only discrepancy in the quote is the fact that the Biden regime is unelected, thanks to the theft of the 2016 presidential election from Trump.

Despotism is one of those words I’ve encountered over and over again and was 99 percent sure I knew what it meant.  I looked it up to be sure.  Here is a definition of despotism from Google.  It corresponds with my understanding of the term.

A country or political system where the ruler holds absolute power.  The exercise of absolute power, especially in a cruel an oppressive way.

I looked up the original source of the quote and found it here, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia written in 1784.

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. 

The Constitution properly distributed government power between three federal branches, with proper checks and balances.  Also government power was distributed between the states and the federal government.

Progressives began transforming the United States from a constitutional republic into a full-fledged despotism over a hundred years ago by concentrating the majority of all government power into an enormously overblown executive branch of the federal government. The United States is now completely a despotism.

In his farewell address George Washington also warned that the concentration of power would lead to despotism.

The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.

Thomas Jefferson tried to end slavery when he wrote the Declaration of Independence

Posted: July 8, 2021 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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Every time I post quotes by Thomas Jefferson on social media, something I do quite often because he has always been the founding father I most closely identify with, my Progressive friends trot out their customary talking points with maximum smugness.  I’m absolutely sure you know which ones I’m talking about.  The ones condemning Thomas Jefferson for owning slaves, which he inherited and tried desperately to free but could not because of Virginia law. and being a white supremacist.  Jefferson very hard to free all slaves on several occasions but failed. He was no white supremacist either. Neither charges are valid and are discussed in these two books: Jefferson Lies and The Real Thomas Jefferson. Both are extremely well documented and chock full of quotes.

As Independence Day rolls around every year liberal news agencies bash Thomas Jefferson for hypocrisy because they claim he only included white people when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, that he did not touch on slavery at all. They are dead wrong on this.   The original and complete text of Declaration of Independence, as originally written by Thomas Jefferson, is proof of hollowness if these charges. 

The truth of the matter is that the original complete text of the Declaration of Independence is proof that Thomas Jefferson was actually a failed abolitionist.  When he wrote the Declaration of Independence he included a clause condemning the King of England for England’s role in slavery. That criticism of slavery in our most seminal document would have ended slavery in the this newborn nation.  The clause was eliminated by the members of the Continental Congress who were from colonies that supported slavery.  Here is the deleted clause.

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.  This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain.  Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce.  And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

To preserve our Constitutional Republic States need to nullify unconstitutional acts by the Biden Administration

Posted: February 4, 2021 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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Joe Biden’s first two weeks in office have so far proved to be as bad as I feared.  He has issued a staggering number of executive orders, all of them a smorgasbord of far left edicts from on high, all of which destroy liberty, the economy, and jobs.  So far the Democrats-Socialists who control congress have not passed a single bit of legislation but when they finally do, everything they pass will be as odious as all of Biden’s executive orders.

Because both Houses of Congress and the presidency are all occupied by the most radical leftists imaginable all appears to be very bleak for every single person living the United States.  Thankfully a remedy exists under our Constitution whereby the individual states can put a halt to all unconstitutional acts by the federal government, whether they be laws passed by congress, executive orders, or Supreme Court decisions.  This remedy is called Nullification and it is discussed in great detail in the Draft of Kentucky Resolutions by Thomas Jefferson.  The Kentucky Resolutions were written by Jefferson in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were signed into law by John Adams.  The final version passed by Kentucky were very much watered by the Kentucky legislature, therefore I believe do not truly represent the views of Jefferson.

In this quote we see Thomas Jefferson’s justification for nullification:

1. _Resolved_, That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

In this next quote Thomas Jefferson discusses one of the most important constitutional principles, one that was so important it was enshrined in the Tenth Amendment.  Every single one of Joe Biden’s executive orders and every single law that the Democrat controlled Congress will pass violate the United States Constitution. 

3. _Resolved_, That it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitution, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people;” and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the States or the people

Thomas Jefferson lays out his doctrine of Nullification in this next quote.  As you can see the states can nullify federal actions on their own without waiting for the Supreme Court.

8.  …that in cases of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the General Government, being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy; but, where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non foederis,) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them:

Nullification is also discussed in the Virginia Resolutions by James Madison, although he does not use the term.

RESOLVED, That the General Assembly of Virginia, doth unequivocably express a firm resolution to maintain and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of this State, against every aggression either foreign or domestic, and that they will support the government of the United States in all measures warranted by the former.

That this assembly most solemnly declares a warm attachment to the Union of the States, to maintain which it pledges all its powers; and that for this end, it is their duty to watch over and oppose every infraction of those principles which constitute the only basis of that Union, because a faithful observance of them, can alone secure it’s existence and the public happiness.

That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.

Nullification is not discussed in the Constitution but it does not have to be for states to have that power.  If you don not agree check out the Tenth Amendment.  It is not specifically denied to the Sates therefore the states have that power.

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