The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
GOVERNMENT / MONARCHY
I am astonished at some people's considering a kingly government as a
refuge. Advise such to read the fable of the frogs who solicited
Jupiter for a king. If that does not put them to rights, send them to
Europe to see something of the trappings of monarchy, and I will
undertake that every man shall go back thoroughly cured. If all the
evils which can arise among us, from the republican form of our
government, from this day to the day of judgment, could be put into a
scale against what this country suffers from its monarchical form in a
week, or England in a month, the latter would preponderate. Consider
the contents of the Red Book in England, or the Almanac Royal in
France, and say what a people gain by monarchy. No race of kings has
ever presented above one man of common sense in twenty generations.
The best they can do is to leave things to their ministers; and what
are their ministers but a committee, badly chosen? If the king ever
meddles, it is to do harm.
to Benjamin Hawkins, 4 August 1787
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