The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
REPUBLICANISM / REFORMS
I am sensible how far I should fall short of effecting all the
reformation which reason would suggest, and experience approve, were I
free to do whatever I thought best; but when we reflect how difficult
it is to move or inflect the great machine of society, how impossible
to advance the notions of a whole people suddenly to ideal right, we
see the wisdom of Solon's remark, that no more good must be attempted
than the nation can bear, and that all will be chiefly to reform the
waste of public money, and thus drive away the vultures who prey upon
it, and improve some little on old routines. Some new fences for
securing constitutional rights may, with the aid of a good
legislature, perhaps be attainable.
to Walter Jones, 31 March 1801
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