Actually, there is no evidence that TJ actually uttered these words. They first appeared in 2004. According to the Monticello.org website:
We currently have no evidence to confirm that Thomas Jefferson ever said or wrote, “Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%” or any of its listed variations. We do not know the source of this statement’s attribution to Thomas Jefferson.
So much for that. The internet has all sorts of expressions attributed to Thomas Jefferson that people want to fit in with this great leader. This is just one of them.
Let’s examine the words though. Is that really what its all about? 51% of the population dominating the other 49%? It does seem that the lines are that closely drawn. Recent elections also confirm that we are pretty much split down the middle. Are we all in one camp or the other or is there an overlap?
Our political leaders would have us believe that we were all Republican or all Democratic. I am not so sure we are that polarized. Furthermore, who is to decide what is Republican and what is really Democratic? The word RINO clearly demonstrates that there is some sort of litmus test to be a Republican. How about an explanation please.
People recklessly toss around a lot of apocrypha from Lincoln also. One has to wonder about the mentality of the guy who first utters these made-up sayings for political purposes. Of course, once they’re out there, a hundred thousand others will repeat them and they can get entrenched in the popular consciousness.
I can smell a false Lincoln quote from fifty miles off. This one from Jefferson, as I read it, seemed squirrely too. Glad my BS meter works for highjackings of icons of both the Democratic and Republican Party.
Yea, it was a little too statistical for the fathers, back in the day….They weren’t much on percents. Probably too much math involved.
If I had a quarter for every lie propagated on the internet, I’d be a millionaire.
@Elena
But…but….if its on the internet, it MUST be true. Its the law!
I saw that on the internet!
And remember….76% of all statistics on the internet are made up.
Isn’t it interesting that a small group of rabble rousers declared independence from Great Britain. Fifty-six men (no women allowed) made a decision for 2,400,000 Americans. Far from 51%. Today we have 535 “representatives” making decisions for 317 million Americans justifying them as being what the American people want. In reality, a fraction of 1% really push us wherever THEY want us to go-the best government their money can buy.
George, it really is interesting to think about. They were all relatively young men, also.
Someone told me the other day that they were basically rednecks who were more educate than those around them, which might have meant they could sign their names.
Not sure if I buy into the redneck theory. I guess she meant by today’s standards.
You are right about the 1%.
Rednecks? That doesn’t speak well for Virginia. Some of them were our landed gentry. It sure doesn’t say much for my people who were farmed the neighboring Albemarle County land. My people were farmers who could read and write but certainly not up to Jefferson’s intellectual genius.
Rednecks?! Not even by today’s standards. Of course there was a range of education, formal and informal, among the Founders, but I’d have to say that, as a group, they were probably better educated than all but the top five per cent of the American population today. Many of them were remarkably well read, not only in English, but in the Classics (Greek and Latin) and some knew Hebrew and continental European languages. A Jefferson, Adams, Madison or a Franklin was probably better informed and more roundly literate than anyone any of us knows today.
It was an extremely elitist bunch. “Elitism” in a democratic Republic is not necessarily a good thing. However, in the context of building a unique a durable governance structure based on power flowing from the people to the Government, we are the beneficiaries of their elite status.
Yes, I would agree with Scout. We are, in some ways, far behind our Founders but on the other hand they did not develop the power of flight, men on the moon, nuclear power, computers, space stations, medicine as we know it today. They were extremely brilliant for THEIR TIME but I do not believe they were prescient as to where we are today.
The things you mention, George, are technological and mechanical advancements. It takes a while for materials science, manufacturing techniques, and data crunching to catch up with conceptual knowledge. I would say that many of the Founders knew the science of their day far better than virtually any political figure of our time knows the science of his/her day. I also suspect that many of the Founders would understand or learn the rudimentary principles of flight, steam power, or the telegraph more quickly and avidly than many of our present pols understand those technologies even in the rear-view mirror of more than a century of their practical applications.
As to your last sentence, I agree that the Founders, for all their erudition and wisdom, could have little sense of the particular issues and facts that we deal with today. That is why the structure they gave us for preserving liberty while being able to govern is so remarkable. It has endured and functioned across a great many changes.
@ Scout: “I would say that many of the Founders knew the science of their day far better than virtually any political figure of our time knows the science of his/her day. I also suspect that many of the Founders would understand or learn the rudimentary principles of flight, steam power, or the telegraph more quickly and avidly than many of our present pols understand those technologies even in the rear-view mirror of more than a century of their practical applications.”
I absolutely agree with you here. And the fact that we have an amendable Constitution was a stroke of genius.
Yup. Not just amendable (although that’s very important – think of how important virtually every amendment has been), but broadly enough drafted to have some considerable flexibility as the world and the country change.
Except perhaps the Eighteenth Amendment. 😉 Then there is the whole thing of the strictest constructionist–kinda like the folks that believe everything in the Christian Bible is the absolute truth and that the world is only 5771 years old and humans lived among the dinosaurs. What can I say?