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Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1787: What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if t

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1787: What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to 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. He seemed to believe in warfare theory

Gys 4y ago
I wonder if he still would be with the current state of arms and options for mass destruction.
- googlryas 4y ago
  Maybe? Flintlock muskets were fairly new technology around the US revolution - less than 100 years before that, people would have been using match locks and arquebuses - relatively the difference is probably similar to the difference between a smith and wesson revolver and an AR-15.
  - eric-hu 4y ago
    Did “right to bear arms” ever include larger weapons like cannons? I’ve kind of wondered why the second amendment doesn’t cover larger and more destructive things.
    - simonh 4y ago
      You could own canons. Civilian ships sometimes carried them.
    - pokey00 4y ago
      Tough question to answer. Historically, privately owned artillery has been OK and was crucial during the Revolutionary War and all sorts of little skirmishes throughout the 19th century. It still is OK with the right tax stamps, but that doesn't say much about the natural right side of things... just because you can own them doesn't make ownership constitutionally protected. My pet theory that I've espoused on here before is that the 2A, in part, protects at minimum "bearable arms"- essentially a soldier's personal weapon. There's a very big gray area outside of that though, especially in regards to anything that explodes.
    - troutwine 4y ago
      You can own a cannon today. I think you can own any type of cannon that was manufactured before like 1890 (memory is fuzzy here), a "saluting" cannon for funerals and what not and otherwise you have to pay for a tax stamp then wait for the paperwork to go through. State laws vary. Cannons are pretty neat devices to construct, especially if you try to do bore drilling with any period accurate methods.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      At the time, a militia was a whole-community thing. The town would have an armory, and the town militia would get together for exercises, check out weapons, and put them back, after. Carrying a gun around on daily business, you would be thought deeply peculiar, unless you needed it for work. "Concealed carry" would have seriously creeped people out. And yes, the armory would have had cannon that would be practiced on.
    - hoseja 4y ago
      There were private warship fleets.
simonh 4y ago
He was writing at a time very early in the development of democracies, and democratic institutions. If you have a free society and democracy, then there is no place for violence. Violence imposes an inequality in power in favour of those who are more violently inclined over those who are not. It further empowers the strong and further disenfranchises the weak or disadvantaged. Heinlein called voting the exercise of force, but that’s wrong, it is the ultimate exercise of speech. It’s having a say. The process of voting is one of giving all a voice. Violence is inherently anti freedom, anti speech, it is an attempt to silence or coerce others through intimidation or death. They are opposites. He called an armed society a polite society. Democratic societies shouldn’t have to be polite, they should be free to be impolite. Free speech means freedom to say things others don’t want to hear, otherwise it’s no freedom at all. Vetoing that with a threat of violence is tyranny. So no, I’m sorry, I know Jefferson and the founding fathers of the war of independence are heroes in the US, but in the context of a democratic state he’s just flat out wrong. If you have no voice, have no vote, or if the system is corrupt or unfair then sure. In that situation you don’t have a say, so violence might be justified. They were justified in taking up arms against Britain. But if you do have a say and resort to violence to impose your views anyway, that’s oppression.
jwhitlark 4y ago
So a man who had never fought in a battle and owned slaves thought other people's lives were cheap. Jefferson made significant contributions to both America and the world, but that doesn't mean he never got it wrong.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  Jefferson and his contemporaries in the US and enlightenment Europe were instrumental in the elimination of slavery worldwide: https://youtu.be/TxD4AwFiELM https://youtu.be/TxD4AwFiELM Going from having slavery as a global institution, entrenched since the beginning of man, to the abolishment of slavery, is not a trivial problem.
  - jwhitlark 4y ago
    I did not say it was trivial, nor did I belittle his very real achievements. What I was attempting to say is this quote is needlessly cavalier with people's lives, and should be taken with a grain of salt. Voices from the past are guides, not masters.
    - ETH_start 4y ago
      I agree that they are guides, not masters.
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      I suspect that in a world where half of the kids died of banal diseases and even a strong young person could die from smallpox, rotten tooth or tuberculosis in a few weeks or months, human lives weren't valued as highly. War was just one of many ways to die young.
  - faeriechangling 4y ago
    Jefferson and his contemporaries led a revolution against a country which abolished slavery more quickly than America did, and several of his contemporaries were literally slaveholding bigots. If they never existed slavery may have been abolished sooner, although in our alternate history Britain would be under more pressure to not abolish to keep the southern economy going. It’s great he said some abolitionist things, but abolitionists had existed and had even successfully abolished slavery since before the birth of Christ. There are people after Jefferson and his contemporaries that actually abolished slavery from then into the present day. I’m not sure why the US founding fathers who came up with shit like the 3/5th’s compromise deserve any special credit. I would give more credit to the white abolitionists who lived in the 1800s and the slaves themselves.

Gys 4y ago

I wonder if he still would be with the current state of arms and options for mass destruction.

googlryas 4y ago
Maybe? Flintlock muskets were fairly new technology around the US revolution - less than 100 years before that, people would have been using match locks and arquebuses - relatively the difference is probably similar to the difference between a smith and wesson revolver and an AR-15.
- eric-hu 4y ago
  Did “right to bear arms” ever include larger weapons like cannons? I’ve kind of wondered why the second amendment doesn’t cover larger and more destructive things.
  - simonh 4y ago
    You could own canons. Civilian ships sometimes carried them.
  - pokey00 4y ago
    Tough question to answer. Historically, privately owned artillery has been OK and was crucial during the Revolutionary War and all sorts of little skirmishes throughout the 19th century. It still is OK with the right tax stamps, but that doesn't say much about the natural right side of things... just because you can own them doesn't make ownership constitutionally protected. My pet theory that I've espoused on here before is that the 2A, in part, protects at minimum "bearable arms"- essentially a soldier's personal weapon. There's a very big gray area outside of that though, especially in regards to anything that explodes.
  - troutwine 4y ago
    You can own a cannon today. I think you can own any type of cannon that was manufactured before like 1890 (memory is fuzzy here), a "saluting" cannon for funerals and what not and otherwise you have to pay for a tax stamp then wait for the paperwork to go through. State laws vary. Cannons are pretty neat devices to construct, especially if you try to do bore drilling with any period accurate methods.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    At the time, a militia was a whole-community thing. The town would have an armory, and the town militia would get together for exercises, check out weapons, and put them back, after. Carrying a gun around on daily business, you would be thought deeply peculiar, unless you needed it for work. "Concealed carry" would have seriously creeped people out. And yes, the armory would have had cannon that would be practiced on.
  - hoseja 4y ago
    There were private warship fleets.

simonh 4y ago

He was writing at a time very early in the development of democracies, and democratic institutions. If you have a free society and democracy, then there is no place for violence. Violence imposes an inequality in power in favour of those who are more violently inclined over those who are not. It further empowers the strong and further disenfranchises the weak or disadvantaged. Heinlein called voting the exercise of force, but that’s wrong, it is the ultimate exercise of speech. It’s having a say. The process of voting is one of giving all a voice. Violence is inherently anti freedom, anti speech, it is an attempt to silence or coerce others through intimidation or death. They are opposites. He called an armed society a polite society. Democratic societies shouldn’t have to be polite, they should be free to be impolite. Free speech means freedom to say things others don’t want to hear, otherwise it’s no freedom at all. Vetoing that with a threat of violence is tyranny. So no, I’m sorry, I know Jefferson and the founding fathers of the war of independence are heroes in the US, but in the context of a democratic state he’s just flat out wrong. If you have no voice, have no vote, or if the system is corrupt or unfair then sure. In that situation you don’t have a say, so violence might be justified. They were justified in taking up arms against Britain. But if you do have a say and resort to violence to impose your views anyway, that’s oppression.

jwhitlark 4y ago

So a man who had never fought in a battle and owned slaves thought other people's lives were cheap. Jefferson made significant contributions to both America and the world, but that doesn't mean he never got it wrong.

ETH_start 4y ago
Jefferson and his contemporaries in the US and enlightenment Europe were instrumental in the elimination of slavery worldwide: https://youtu.be/TxD4AwFiELM https://youtu.be/TxD4AwFiELM Going from having slavery as a global institution, entrenched since the beginning of man, to the abolishment of slavery, is not a trivial problem.
- jwhitlark 4y ago
  I did not say it was trivial, nor did I belittle his very real achievements. What I was attempting to say is this quote is needlessly cavalier with people's lives, and should be taken with a grain of salt. Voices from the past are guides, not masters.
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    I agree that they are guides, not masters.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    I suspect that in a world where half of the kids died of banal diseases and even a strong young person could die from smallpox, rotten tooth or tuberculosis in a few weeks or months, human lives weren't valued as highly. War was just one of many ways to die young.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  Jefferson and his contemporaries led a revolution against a country which abolished slavery more quickly than America did, and several of his contemporaries were literally slaveholding bigots. If they never existed slavery may have been abolished sooner, although in our alternate history Britain would be under more pressure to not abolish to keep the southern economy going. It’s great he said some abolitionist things, but abolitionists had existed and had even successfully abolished slavery since before the birth of Christ. There are people after Jefferson and his contemporaries that actually abolished slavery from then into the present day. I’m not sure why the US founding fathers who came up with shit like the 3/5th’s compromise deserve any special credit. I would give more credit to the white abolitionists who lived in the 1800s and the slaves themselves.