"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much
liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." --Thomas
Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1791. ME 8:276

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain
occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be
exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at
all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in
the atmosphere." --Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1787.

"Governments, wherein the will of every one has a just influence...
has its evils,... the principal of which is the turbulence to which
it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy,
and it becomes nothing. Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam
servitutem. [I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of
servitude.] Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the
degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the
public affairs." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:64

"Our preference to [the republican] form of government has been so
far justified by its success, and the prosperity with which it has blessed us. In no portion of the earth were life, liberty and property ever so securely held." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Virginia General Assembly, 1809. ME 16:333

"[The purpose of a written constitution is] to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIII, 1782. ME 2:178

"I consider the foundation of the [Federal] Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." [10th Amendment] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition." --Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on National Bank, 1791. ME 3:146

"I was in Europe when the Constitution was planned, and never saw it till after it was established. On receiving it, I wrote strongly to Mr. Madison, urging the want of provision for... an express reservation to the States of all rights not specifically granted to the Union." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1802. ME 10:325

"[An] act of the Congress of the United States... which assumes powers... not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void and of no force." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:383

"Laws provide against injury from others, but not from ourselves." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776 Papers 1:546

"Smaller objections [I have to the new Constitution] are [the omission of] the appeals on matters of fact as well as law, and the binding of all persons, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, by oath to maintain that constitution." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:390

"I apprehend... that the total abandonment of the principle of rotation in the offices of President and Senator will end in abuse." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81

"Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803. ME 10:419

"The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption--a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated, not those who opposed it, and who opposed it merely lest the construction should be applied which they denounced as possible." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Address, 1801. ME 10:248

"Whenever the words of a law will bear two meanings, one of which will give effect to the law, and the other will defeat it, the former must be supposed to have been intended by the Legislature, because they could not intend that meaning, which would defeat their intention, in passing that law; and in a statute, as in a will, the intention of the party is to be sought after." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1808. ME 12:110

"In every event, I would rather construe so narrowly as to oblige the nation to amend, and thus declare what powers they would agree to yield, than too broadly, and indeed, so broadly as to enable the executive and the Senate to do things which the Constitution forbids." --Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1793. ME 1:408

"Surely the President and Senate cannot do by treaty what the whole government is interdicted from doing in any way." --Thomas Jefferson: Parliamentary Manual, 1800. ME 2:442

"Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:386

"[The States] alone being parties to the [Federal] compact... [are] solely authorized to judge in the last resort of the powers exercised under it, Congress being not a party but merely the creation of the compact and subject as to its assumptions of power to the final judgment of those by whom and for whose use itself and its powers were all created and modified." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:387