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To: Little Joe who wrote (104321)	8/8/2009 4:08:58 PM
From: Tommaso	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

My point is to state a historical fact. What I refer to occurred in 1781. Actually I don't see anything wrong with what Jefferson did then. I do think his comments about human blood as manure were a little careless. Jefferson's letter of 1787, six years later, was written while he was in Paris (a pretty safe distance from the events he was referring to-- a rebellion of farmers known as "Shay's Rebellion."): . what country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms. the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it's natural manure Some further commentary on what those closer to the events thought: By the year 1786, the "disunited states" (as the Tories liked to call them) had achieved political independence -- but the eastern states seemed on the verge of collapse as the flames of civil war menaced New England. The American revolution, it seemed, had almost gone too far. General George Washington wrote: "I am mortified beyond expression when I view the clouds that have spread over the brightest morn that ever dawned in any country... What a triumph for the advocates of despotism, to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious." Others in the political elite held the same opinion -- even Massachusetts' onetime Revolutionary agitator, Samuel Adams: "Rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death." Only the young Thomas Jefferson -- reflecting more philosophically and from a safe distance in Europe -- disagreed: "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government. God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion." All eyes were on Massachusetts, where the insurgents who called themselves "Regulators" or "Shays men" had brought about riots, raids, and the closing of courts. calliope.org