A commentary from Cal Thomas caught my eye — little more than a few quotes from Thomas Jefferson strung together. Jefferson seems oddly prescient in these quotes, and, also oddly, rather endorsing the views of the right wing.
From the way the text is laid out, and the brevity of the piece, I’m guessing it’s a radio commentary.
I read Jefferson often. I’ve read Jefferson a lot. I don’t recognize any of the quotes.
So I plugged them into the Jefferson collection at Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Liberty, which has a lot of Jefferson ready for full-text searching.
Oops. None of the quotes scored a hit.
Couldn’t find them in the Library of Congress’s on-line list of quotes, either.
It looks as though Jefferson didn’t say these things that are being attributed to him.
Cal, is that you?
Cal, can you give us citations on these quotes?
How about you, Dear Reader? Can you save Cal Thomas’s bacon by providing a citation for any of the quotes below, alleged to be from Thomas Jefferson?
AS WE LISTEN TO TALK OF BAILOUTS AND ENDLESS DEBT, THINK ON THESE THOUGHTS FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON:
“THE DEMOCRACY WILL CEASE TO EXIST WHEN YOU TAKE AWAY FROM THOSE WHO ARE WILLING TO WORK AND GIVE TO THOSE WHO WOULD NOT.”
HERE’S ANOTHER: “IT IS INCUMBENT ON EVERY GENERATION TO PAY ITS OWN DEBTS AS IT GOES. A PRINCIPLE WHICH IF ACTED ON WOULD SAVE ONE-HALF THE WARS OF THE WORLD.”
AND ANOTHER: “I PREDICT FUTURE HAPPINESS FOR AMERICANS IF THEY CAN PREVENT THE GOVERNMENT FROM WASTING THE LABORS OF THE PEOPLE UNDER THE PRETENSE OF TAKING CARE OF THEM.”
AND ONE MORE: “MY READING OF HISTORY CONVINCES ME THAT MOST BAD GOVERNMENT RESULTS FROM TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT.”
There you have ’em, Dear Readers. Did somebody hoodwink Cal Thomas into thinking these are Jefferson’s bon mots, when they are not?
Shake of the wet scrub brush to Truthseeker.
Below the fold, the complete Cal Thomas commentary.CAL THOMAS COMMENTARY JANUARY 16, 2009
ANCIENT WISDOM IS ALMOST ALWAYS BETTER THAN WHAT PEOPLE COME UP WITH TODAY. CONSIDER THAT IT BECAME ANCIENT BECAUSE IT WAS WISE.
AS WE LISTEN TO TALK OF BAILOUTS AND ENDLESS DEBT, THINK ON THESE THOUGHTS FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON:
“THE DEMOCRACY WILL CEASE TO EXIST WHEN YOU TAKE AWAY FROM THOSE WHO ARE WILLING TO WORK AND GIVE TO THOSE WHO WOULD NOT.”
HERE’S ANOTHER: “IT IS INCUMBENT ON EVERY GENERATION TO PAY ITS OWN DEBTS AS IT GOES. A PRINCIPLE WHICH IF ACTED ON WOULD SAVE ONE-HALF THE WARS OF THE WORLD.”
AND ANOTHER: “I PREDICT FUTURE HAPPINESS FOR AMERICANS IF THEY CAN PREVENT THE GOVERNMENT FROM WASTING THE LABORS OF THE PEOPLE UNDER THE PRETENSE OF TAKING CARE OF THEM.”
AND ONE MORE: “MY READING OF HISTORY CONVINCES ME THAT MOST BAD GOVERNMENT RESULTS FROM TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT.”
JEFFERSON IS CONSIDERED BY THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO HAVE BEEN THE FIRST DEMOCRAT. TODAY’S DEMOCRATS (AND REPUBLICANS) WOULD DO WELL TO ATTEND TO HIS ANCIENT WISDOM.
WANT THESE QUOTES? VISIT CALTHOMAS.COM AND CLOCK ON “TRANSCRIPTS.” I’M CAL THOMAS IN WASHINGTON.
Here is an image of Jefferson’s letter to Thomas Cooper of November 29, 1802 — from which comes the quote upon which is based the third quote attributed by Thomas; see comments for corrected wording.
“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.” –Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1820. FE 10:175
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[…] Is this another fake Jefferson quote? […]
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[…] Is this another fake Jefferson quote? […]
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Mr. Apple — see the authoritative source who wrote in earlier, Anna:
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Correcton to my previous post. In the first paragraph,the sentence should have read:
Apparently this is in FACT correct, according to the “Jeffersonian Cyclopedia”
My apologies.
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In reference to “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”- Please see http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/j/jefferson-quotes.htm
Apparently this is in correct, according to the “Jeffersonian Cyclopedia” published in 1900 by Funk and Wagnalls and edited by John P. Foley page 227. This was mentioned earlier by Phillipswcs
Further:I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”-Truth! Found on Page 271
In addition: I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”-Truth! Found on Page 271
the others quotes listed at the top of the string do not appear in the Jeffersonian Cyclopedia.
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But I find it hilarious that teabaggers think we should follow their interpretation of what Jefferson said on that letter….but they, or rather the religious nutjobs among them, want to wholesale ignore what Jefferson said about the separation of church and state in Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists.
Hypocrisy much?
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Well this is what http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/wasting-labours-people-quotation has on it:
Note: This passage has often been mis-quoted as, “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” Ford and L&B have also slightly mis-transcribed the original text as, “If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.”
And this would be from: http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefLett.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=147&division=div1
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Got a link? I’m not sure what you’re referring to.
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If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.
Here it is from the site you provided
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Compilations of quotes that don’t offer detailed citations shouldn’t be trusted. They may be correct on occasion, but I wouldn’t use them for a politician’s speech, let alone an academic paper or a legal cite.
Several of these quotes have at least vestiges of fact in them. Stick with the University of Virginia and the people there who knock themselves out to get Jefferson stuff correct and accurate.
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About half of these quotes are found in the Jeffersonian Cyclopedia” published in 1900 by Funk and Wagnalls and edited by John P. Foley. The other half are not and as yet, don’t seem to have validation.
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The “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.” quote is in the Jeffersonian Cyclopedia on page 227, where it says the number 2002, followed by the quote.
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In poetry, when you take lines from various sources and put them in a different order it’s called a Found Poem.
Cal Thomas has created a Found Commentary and I wish he’d get lost.
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This exact quotation has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It bears a very vague resemblance to Jefferson’s comment in a prospectus for his translation of Destutt de Tracy’s Treatise on Political Economy: “To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, ‘the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, & the fruits acquired by it.”
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That would be pretty cool if either the Madison Papers or Montpelier could provide a spurious Madison quotations resource. We basically did ours to preserve our own sanity – we are asked about TJ quotations so often, we thought perhaps it might cut down on our crushing reference question load if we put the information out there for people. I’m sure other famous figures could do with their own spurious quotes debunking resource as well. I think most places take the tack though of just providing legitimate sources for the Writings of Whomever, and not directly addressing all the material floating around that’s wrong (or possibly/probably wrong). I’ll ask them, though.
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Oooh, thanks for the link, Anna.
Hey, do you have any influence at the Madison Papers group at the University of Virginia? Could they do the same thing for Madison quotes?
It would be a full-time job for anybody working in Lincoln quotes . . .
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This list has accounted for an inordinate amount of reference traffic for us lately, so your blog entry here made me very happy. I’m so glad to see I’m not the only one who reads that list and says, “Hey, wait a minute…!” I did my best to run down the whole list and include each quote in our TJ Encyclopedia (which I’ve very happy to see you’ve discovered) but just for easy access here’s a blog entry I did that goes down this list one by one: http://jeffersonlibrary.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/epic-10-part-reference-question/. – Anna Berkes, Research Librarian, Jefferson Library
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“IT IS INCUMBENT ON EVERY GENERATION TO PAY ITS OWN DEBTS AS IT GOES. A PRINCIPLE WHICH IF ACTED ON WOULD SAVE ONE-HALF THE WARS OF THE WORLD.”
Well, Christ Almighty! It’s a pity George Bush or Dick Cheney never heard that one!
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Who in the world is John Sharp Williams — and what are the odds that we can properly cite the quote to him?
Thanks for the news, Karl.
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Oh, but one of them is also attributed to John Sharp Williams:
http://thinkexist.com/quotation/my_reading_of_history_convinces_me_that_most_bad/195448.html
An interesting excercise in accuracy…
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One site confirms the first quote as from Jefferson without specific attribution as to when and where he said it.
http://www.famous-quote.net/thomas-jefferson-quotes.shtml
The second and fourth quotes are at:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasjeff136389.html
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasjeff157220.html
karl
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It’s interesting to me that Jefferson seems not to have used the word “incumbent” much; plus, Jefferson, who was broke much of his life, rarely handed out financial advice, even to government.
I’d much more easily believe Ron Paul invented it, than Thomas Jefferson. What do you think? I am leery of quotes that go for so long without being tied down to a real writing of a person.
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“IT IS INCUMBENT ON EVERY GENERATION…”
http://tinyurl.com/ctbwwg for the google search. only 31 cites without repeats and seems to result recently from Ron Paul.
However, here is a 2007 source, from UVA. However, there is no specific cite [e.g., volume id, page, etc.]
[PPT]
SASFAA-Nashville February 12, 2007 An Academic Approach to …
File Format: Microsoft Powerpoint – View as HTML
“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which, if acted on, would save one-half the wars of the world.” …
http://www.sasfaa.org/docs/conferences/2007/presentations/AcademicApproachtoFinancialLiteracy.ppt –
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From the Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress:
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Thanks for the link, J. A. Higginbotham!
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Over at Truthseeker, the Reasonable Citizen has commented:
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Well, here is the only one I looked up:
http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Bad_government_results_from_too_much_government
jah
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