The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
PUBLIC REVENUE / TAXATION
Knowing your affections to this country, and the interest you take in
whatever concerns it, I therein gave you a tableau of its state when I
retired from the administration. Peace
has been our principle,
peace is our interest, and peace has saved to the world this only
plant of free and rational government now existing in it. If it can
still be preserved, we shall soon see the final extinction of our
national debt, and liberation of our revenues for the defence and
improvement of our country.
These revenues will be levied entirely on the rich, the business of
household manufacture being now so established that the farmer and
laborer clothe themselves entirely. The rich alone use imported
articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government
are levied. The poor man who uses nothing but what is made in his own
farm or family, or within his own country, pays not a farthing of tax
to the general government, but on his salt; and should we go into that
manufacture also, as is probable, he will pay nothing. Our revenues
liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied
to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government
supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a
paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being
called on to spend a cent from his earnings. However, therefore, we
may have been reproached for pursuing our Quaker system, time will
affix the stamp of wisdom on it, and the happiness and prosperity of
our citizens will attest its merit. And this, I believe, is the only
legitimate object of government, and the first duty of governors.
to Thaddeus Kosciusko (General), 13 April 1811
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