"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."

by: Thomas Jefferson

(1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President Source: November 13, 1787, letter to William S. Smith, quoted in Padover's Jefferson On Democracy, ed., 1939

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