I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.
And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.
If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat [diabetes hike] and in our drink [water hike], in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.
AUTHOR
Thomas Jefferson
RECIPIENT
Samuel Kercheval
DATE RANGE
1810 - 1820
DATE
July 12, 1816
And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.
If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat [diabetes hike] and in our drink [water hike], in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.
AUTHOR
Thomas Jefferson
RECIPIENT
Samuel Kercheval
DATE RANGE
1810 - 1820
DATE
July 12, 1816