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> Your pages are indeed informative and interesting, as I have for many
> years, found Thomas Jefferson to have been the finest of our founding
> fathers. I have used the quote of his for several years as an addendum to
> my signatory works I have yet to authenticate it's origin. Is there a
> possibility that you could help me find it's exact source?
> "...government big enough to supply everything you need,
> is government big enough to take everything you have."
> Thomas Jefferson (patriot)
I regret I must inform you that I do not believe the quote you cite is a
genuine Jefferson quote. It is not his writing style on a couple of
points. "Big" government does not seem to have been a part of the
vocabulary of his time. They spoke more in terms of government powers
and were more likely to speak of governnment in terms of quantity ("too
much") rather than size ("big"), as in the second quote listed below.
These are, admittedly, linguistic
objections. The idea expressed is not exactly opposed or foreign to
Jefferson's views; he just did not view government and the dangers it
presents in those terms. He saw government *whatever the size* as a
constant potential threat that must be held "in chains," so he would not
have taken size as the initiator of alarm. Moreover, it probably would
never have occurred to him that a free people would wish for a government
that would supply everything they needed. Additionally, I might say that
the very concepts of supplying "everything you need" and taking
"everything you have" are so hyperbolic ("does that include food and
toothpaste? if a government took *everything* you have, what would be its
source for future revenues?"), he would not be likely to have expressed
himself in those terms. Jefferson was a very precise thinker.
The closest thing I could find to the ideas expressed in the quote you
cite are the following:
"We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and
servitude." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.
"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.
As you can see from even these quotes, the quote you ask about could not
be called "anti-Jefferson." Moreover, I am compelled to remind you that
it is difficult, if not impossible, to prove a negative. It is not
impossible that it could actually turn out to be a quote from his
writings! But I don't think so. My suggestion would be that you use the
first quote I cite above. It expresses essentially the same idea, does
it more profoundly, and is unquestionably authentic.