Jefferson and the right to revolution

For a scholarly work I may try to crank out, I was wondering...Under what conditions do a people, according to Jefferson, have a right to revolt or rebel? The obvious answer is;

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

However, I'm having trouble putting together some supporting points (pathetic, I know) and since there's a lot of people who know this stuff like the back of their hand here of FR, I thought I'd see some suggestions. I have a few thing about the rights of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", that these rights are fundamental and thus if a government doesn't provide for and protect them, then its not doing its job. I also have a vague bit about John Locke partially inspiring Jefferson.

Here is something I found today:

A Visitor from the Past
by Thelen Paulk

I had a dream the other night, I did not understand
A figure walking through the mist, with flintlock in his hand
His clothes were torn and dirty;
As he stood their by my bed, he took off his three cornered hat
And speaking low, he said,

We fought a revolution to secure our Liberty
We wrote the Constitution, as a shield from tyranny
For future generations this legacy we gave
In this, the land of the free and the home of the brave

The freedom we secured for you, we hoped you'd always keep
But tyrants labored endlessly, while your parents were asleep
Your freedom gone - Your courage lost - Your no more than a slave
In this, the land of the free and the home of the brave

You buy a permit to travel, and a permit to own a gun
Permits to start a business or to build a place for one
On land that you believe you own, you pay a yearly rent
Although you have no voice in choosing, how the money's spent

Your children must attend a school, that does not educate
Your Christian values can't be taught, according to the State
You read about the current news in a regulated press
You pay a tax you do not owe, to please the IRS

Your money is no longer made of silver or gold
You trade your wealth for paper, so your life can be controlled
You pay for crimes that make your nation turn from God in shame
You've taken Satans number, as you traded in your name

You've given government control to those who do you harm,
so they can padlock churches, and steal the family farm
and keep our country deep in debt,
put men of God in jail, harass your fellow countrymen
While corrupted courts prevail

Your public servants don't uphold the solemn oath they swore
Your daughters visit doctors, so their children won't be born
Your leaders ship artillery and guns to foreign shores,
and send your sons to slaughter, to fight other peoples wars

Can you regain your freedom, for which we fought and died,
or don't you have the courage or the faith to stand with pride
Are there no more values for which you would fight to save,
or do you wish your children, to live in fear and be a slave

Sons of the Republic, arise and take a stand
Defend the Constitution, the supreme law of the land
Preserve our great Republic, and teach each God given right,
and pray to God to keep the torch of freedom burning bright...

Some Jefferson quotes:

“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is freedon.”

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government. So let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so that the second will not become the legal version of the first.”

“A people unwilling to use extreme violent force to preserve or obtain their liberty deserves the tyrants that rule them.”

“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”

You have the right of rebellion against a tyrannical government or against a threatened tyranny.

But if the government isn't tyrannical and you can work politically to change things, you don't have a right of rebellion or revolution against that government.

Today, if you really want changes there are techniques of non-violent protest that can often do a lot to change a constitutional and democratically-elected government's stance on things.

A lot of the talk of right of revolution originated before such tactics -- and such constitutionally and democratically elected governments -- were around, and reflects an age that was too quick to rush to the last resort.

I don’t know if he ever talked about future rebellions and revolts in absolute and detailed terms, only that he thought it might happen some time down the road for reasons he couldn’t have possibly forseen in detail. My impression, regarding his writings, is that he was coming at it from the angle of the nature of government, how it tends to spin out of control.

Given that he was around during the time period when we were just starting out down a mostly uncharted political path he felt the bumps along the way from the failure of the Articles of Confederation to watching the Federalists having their way with the Constitution. This is speculation only, but I think the time between the ratification of the Constitution and when he became president he was quite doubtful the Constitution would endure and revolution would be the only way to set things to right, or at least have another go at it.

Here is one of my favorite Jefferson writings, and it may shed some light on where he was coming from:

Notes on Virginia: Query 17

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desireable? No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes then, and as there is danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter.

“But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.”

“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”

What a definitive statement of the core meaning of the Second Amendment! The individual right to self-defense is, of course, important, and implied in the overall concept of the Second Amendment, but Jefferson's quote exposes the utter absurdity of those who would try justify the banning of military-appropriate (i.e. militia-appropriate) weapons.

In the context of the Founders' knowledge and the debates which enveloped their time, "gun-controllers" who willingly embrace such patently Tyrannical concepts, such as the banning of "assault weapons, MUST be called out, identified, and branded as the Tyrants that they are.

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