Did Jefferson Say Authorities Large Sufficient To Give 'Every little thing You Need' Can Take It All Away?

For years, web customers have made posts on Facebook (archived), X, Instagram, and other social media sites sharing a quote they attribute to Thomas Jefferson, the U.S. Founding Father and third president.

(Fb web page I Love the USA)

The quote has usually been worded as follows:

A authorities large enough to provide you all the things you need is a authorities large enough to take all the things that you’ve.

Nevertheless, a number of slight variations can be discovered. For instance, in June 2024, one Threads consumer posted (archived):

“A authorities large enough to provide all the things you want is large enough to take all the things you have got. The course of historical past reveals that as a authorities grows, liberty decreases.” — Thomas Jefferson

Equally, in Might 2023, a post (archived) by an X consumer learn:

“A authorities highly effective sufficient to provide you all the things you need, is large enough to remove all the things you have got ” 
Thomas Jefferson

The quote’s circulation was not restricted to social media. It is also discovered on a bumper sticker sold on Amazon, a T-shirt sold on Etsy, and a 4-foot banner sold on the on-demand custom-made merchandise retailer CafePress.

Nevertheless, there isn’t any safe proof that Jefferson ever mentioned any model of the quote, which was declared “pretend” by PolitiFact in a 2019 truth examine and “spurious” in a post by the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, a web site maintained as a part of the official web site for Monticello, the Virginia residence designed and inhabited by Jefferson.

As Anne Berkes, the creator of the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia submit concerning the quote, famous, the quote seems to have first been attributed to Jefferson in a 2005 quote anthology titled “The Quote Handbook: Knowledge and Wit of the Ages” regardless of having circulated for many years beforehand with none attribution in any respect.

For instance, Gerald Ford included it a 1974 presidential address to Congress in addition to in a 1976 campaign speech. Barry Goldwater can be reported to have used the identical flip of phrase in a marketing campaign speech he delivered throughout his unsuccessful 1964 run for the presidency.

In response to the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia submit, and backed up by our personal analysis, the earliest securely datable look of the quote, or any model near it, was on p. 57 of “Keep in mind these Issues,” a 1952 book by the conservative radio character Paul Harvey. 

Like Ford and Goldwater, Harvey didn’t cite an unique creator for the quote — though the truth that he positioned it in citation marks within the e book means that he learn or heard it elsewhere, versus arising with it himself.

(Paul Harvey, “Keep in mind these Issues,” through Web Archive)

Lack of quotation just isn’t the identical factor as arduous proof Jefferson by no means mentioned the quote or a variation thereof. For that cause, Berkes, the creator of the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia submit, additionally carried out her personal seek for the quote within the Jefferson’s writings and concluded: “Neither this citation nor any of its variant types has been discovered within the writings of Thomas Jefferson.”

As a result of Berkes didn’t point out which particular collections of Jefferson’s writings she had appeared in or which search phrases she had used, we carried out our personal search utilizing the Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition, printed on-line by the College of Virginia Press. We carried out the identical search by way of the twelve volumes of Paul Leicester Ford’s 1904-05 “Works of Thomas Jefferson” as digitized by the On-line Library of Liberty.

Since a number of variations of the quote have circulated, we searched for brief phrases together with “large enough” and “all the things [that] you have got” moderately than anybody full model of the quote. Like Berkes, we discovered no proof in any of Jefferson’s accessible writings that he had ever written “A authorities large enough to provide you all the things you need is a authorities large enough to take all the things that you’ve,” or any shut variation thereof. 

Due to this fact, we’ve got rated this quote as “Misattributed.”

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