Thomas Jefferson on Debt and Slavery

Mr. Jefferson's warning against public debt is both timeless and -- for us -- timely.  Jefferson knew from his own experience that if our elected officials were to incur oppressive debt in the name of We the People, not only would we be taxed so heavily that we'd have to spend all our time working just to stay afloat, we'd have neither the time nor the will to hold our oppressors accountable.  Rather than being a free people, we'd end up being grateful for the crumbs that fall from our overlords' table, a table made rich by our labor.

The author of the Declaration of Independence and our third president on the simple choice before the nation:

"to preserve [the People's] independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds [. . .] our people [. . . will have] no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers [. . .] this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second [. . .] till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, and to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering [. . .] And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."

Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Samuel Kercheval
June 12, 1816