Posted on 06/22/2011 11:12:32 AM PDT by presidio9
Excerpts:
It must be recognized that your model was never one of realized perfection, but of ceaseless aspiration. From the outset, for example, America denied the African slave his freedom and human dignity. But in time you righted that wrong, albeit at an incalculable cost in human suffering and loss of life...
America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships...
Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign...
Blacks account for 12% of the population. Black women (in the sense of all black females of any age) should be about 6% of the population.
I'm not defending their's or your calculations eitherway...
but the number of abortions calculation should probably not take into account any of the male population...
that said, wouldn't black women end up making up somewhere around 12% of the total USA women population?
Actually, he is. That quote was a direct warning, one that proved to be prophetic, about the consequences to come upon the republic for countenancing the practice of slavery. And it makes reference as well to the supreme right, the right to live.
Life and Liberty. It's all connected.
For instance, there are his references to "our Saviour," and his expressions of deep admiration and acceptance of the words of Jesus and the "superiority" of the philosophy of Jesus.
Below are a relatively few of his voluminous writings, in no particular order. Choose carefully which one(s) you to use in attempting to judge him.
Thomas Jefferson on religion:
"Our Saviour... has taught us to judge the tree by its fruit, and to leave motives to Him who can alone see into them." --Thomas Jefferson to Martin Van Buren, 1824. ME 16:55
------------------------------------------------------------ "How much wiser are the Quakers, who, agreeing in the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, schismatize about no mysteries, and, keeping within the pale of common sense, suffer no speculative differences of opinion, any more than of feature, to impair their love of their brethren." -To Benjamin Waterhouse, 26 June 1822
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes on Religion, 1776 (Ford 2: 252-68) "And moreover to them who believed their faith was to be counted as righteousness. Not that faith without works was to save them; St. James c. 2 says expressly the contrary; and all make the fundamental pillars of Christianity to be faith and repentance. So that a reformation of life (included under repentance) was essential, and defects in this would be made up by their faith; i.e. their faith should be counted for righteousness."
"St. Paul says-Rom 2:13: "the Gentiles have the law written in their hearts," i.e. the law of nature.
"The epistles were written to persons already Christians. A person might be a Christian then before they were written. Consequently the fundamentals of Christianity were to be found in the preaching of our Saviour, which is related in the gospels. These fundamentals are to be found in the epistles here and there, and promiscuously mixed with other truths. But these other truths are not to be made fundamentals. They serve for edification indeed and explaining to us matters in worship and morality, but being written occasionally it will readily be seen that their explanations are adapted to the notions and customs of the people they were written to. But yet every sentence in them (though the writers were inspired) must not be taken up and made a fundamental, without assent to which a man is not to be admitted a member of the Christian church here, or to his kingdom hereafter.
"In the middle ages of Christianity opposition to the State opinions was hushed. The consequence was, Christianity became loaded with all the Romish follies. Nothing but free argument, raillery and even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.
"Another plea for Episcopal government in religion in England is its similarity to the political government by a king. No bishop, no king. This then with us is a plea for government by a presbytery which resembles republican government. The clergy have ever seen this. The bishops were always mere tools of the crown.
"St. Peter gave the title of clergy to all God's people till Pope Higinus and ye succeeding prelates took it from them and appropriated it to priests only.
"Why require those things in order to ecclesiastical communion which Christ does not require in order to life eternal? How can that be the church of Christ which excludes such persons from its communion as he will one day receive into the kingdom of heaven? [see Matthew 25]
"The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or estate, which more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he shall not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills.
"I cannot give up my guidance to the magistrate, because he knows no more of the way to heaven than I do, and is less concerned to direct me right than I am to go right. If the Jews had followed their kings, among so many, what number would have led them to idolatry?
"Faith is not faith without believing. No man can conform his faith to the dictates of another. The life and essence of religion consists in the internal persuasion or belief of the mind. External forms of worship, when against our belief are hypocrisy and impiety.
"A church is "a voluntary society of men, joining themselves together of their own accord, in order to the public worshipping of God in such a manner as they judge acceptable to him and effectual to the salvation of their souls." It is voluntary because no man is by nature bound to any church.
"Christ has said that "wheresoever two or three are gathered together in his name he will be in the midst of them." This is his definition of a society. He does not make it essential that a bishop or presbyter govern them.
"Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known and seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men. Error has indeed often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error.
One thing is certain, however. Jefferson understood and encapsulated into our Declaration of Independence a world-changing truth: that the rights of man are derived from the Creator, not from any form of human governance.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.