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Jim's Quote of the Day:
"With respect to our rights, and the acts of the British government contravening
those rights, there was but one opinion on this side of the water. All American
whigs thought alike on these subjects. When forced, therefore, to resort to
arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper
for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence.
Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of,
not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before
mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command
their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled
to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied
from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression
of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit
called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing
sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed
essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke,
Sidney, et cetera." - Thomas Jefferson,
letter to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825
