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>Do you recognize the following? It sounds as if it is Jefferson explaining >the rationale for drafting a new constitution, perhaps? circa summer 1787, >Philadelphia??? It is from a letter that discusses the English language. >"The new circumstances under which we are placed call for new words, new >phrases and for the transfer of old words to new objects." The quote is from a letter written from Monticello, August 16, 1813, to John Waldo. This letter is included in the Library of America volume of Jefferson's Writings, page 1295, beginning with the very last line of that page. This collection is available in any public library. The passage is also included in The Memorial Edition of Jefferson's Writings (Lipscomb and Bergh, eds.), vol. 13, pg. 340. That collection is in the public domain. You may be interested in the sentence that precedes the above. It is: "Certainly so great growing a population, spread over such an extent of country, with such a variety of climates, of productions, of arts, must enlarge their language, to make it answer its purpose of expressing all ideas, the new as well as the old. The new circumstances...."