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JEFFERSON'S VIEWS ON POLITICAL PARTIES
>Should there be a third political party? And why? In my opinion -- and also Thomas Jefferson, I believe -- two political parties are all we need. If one or both of them fail to reflect the sentiments of the American people, then they should be changed from within. But a splintering into three or more parties would only undermine national unity and tend to give more power to the parties instead of to the people. This is what Jefferson had to say about political parties: "Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them therefore liberals and serviles,... Whigs and Tories,... aristocrats and democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object. The last one of aristocrats and democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all." --Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 1824. "Men have differed in opinion and been divided into parties by these opinions from the first origin of societies, and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak. The same political parties which now agitate the U.S. have existed through all time. Whether the power of the people or that of the [aristocracy] should prevail were questions which kept the states of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions, as they now schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot. And in fact the terms of Whig and Tory belong to natural as well as to civil history. They denote the temper and constitution of mind of different individuals." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:279 "The division of Whig and Tory... is the most salutary of all divisions and ought, therefore, to be fostered instead of being amalgamated; for take away this, and some more dangerous principle of division will take its place." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1825. For even more quotes, see: http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff0800.htm