Thomas Jefferson

Overview

This page is a seed article. You can help Issuepedia water it: make a request to expand a given page and/or donate to help give us more writing-hours!

Misquotes

Things Jefferson did not say but which are widely attributed to him:

Democracy is Mob Rule

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

• 2007-08-15 Rove's 'Mob' Remark: An Age-Old Social Slur: "The esteemed founder never said it. The folks at Monticello's research library witheringly say that old saw has been dogging him for years."

Attributions:

• Bevin Chu, on LewRockwell.com
• Thinkexist.com

Social Welfare Will Kill Democracy

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

I can't find a definitive statement that he did not say this, but it's not in any of the reliable collections and nobody cites a source for it.

Attributions:

• Democracy Is Not Freedom (sidebar)

Links

Reference

• Wikipedia
• Conservapedia was unavailable (2008-01-02 15:48 EST); could not verify article
• dKosopedia
• SourceWatch: stub
• The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia (1900): Jefferson quotes, by topic
• WikiQuote