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>I have searched your site for Jefferson's quote "That government which
>governs best, governs least" and have been unable to find it. Can you
>tell me if he really said it or to whom it should be attributed?
That quote, widely attributed to Jefferson, is almost certainly NOT by
Jefferson. It was supposedly made by John O'Sullivan. I have written
an essay on that quote and the unlikihood that Jefferson would have
written it. The essay is at:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/7970/jefpco09.htm
There is also an essay on "Spurious Jefferson Quotes at:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/7970/jefpco13.htm
The following is an authentic quote from Jefferson, which, I think you will
agree, seems to contradict the thrust of the reputed quote:
"We are now vibrating between too much and too little government, and
the pendulum will rest finally in the middle." --Thomas Jefferson to
Samuel Smith, 1788.
If the best government is the least, one would think there would be no
such thing as "too little government," yes?
Jefferson was a firm republican, and I believe that if he were to make a
statement about which government is best, it would be something like,
"That government is best which does the will of its people."
Thanks for writing. I hope the above helps.
Eyler Coates
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From the NYTimes:
John L. O'Sullivan?
This O'Sullivan is not entirely obscure.
He invented the term ''Manifest Destiny''
as a warrant for the country's westward
expansion...
O'Sullivan has been underestimated, and so has his movement....
The principal organ of the group was O'Sullivan's United
States Magazine and Democratic Review, more manageably
known as
the Democratic Review, which published the works of rising
authors,
from Longfellow in the North to Poe in the South...
O'Sullivan affected politics, if not policy, by helping win the
New York vote for James Polk in 1844...
A self-proclaimed aristocrat, a self-proclaimed
revolutionary, a collector of geniuses, a cheater of geniuses, he
led a New
York group yet was an ardent supporter of the Confederacy.
--from NYT Bk Rev. 1/31/99