Thomas Jefferson Quotes
It results from our having such quantities of land to waste as we please. In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant: here it is to make the most of our labour, land being abundant
inefficient crop yields per acre
Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, 3rd President of the United States (Democratic Republican, VA), Notes on the State of Virginia
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Use included renting it. What he opposed was simply holding land when whites were driving Indians off their lands because all the unused land outside of the reservation was owned by someone and the asking price was very high. Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.
The word “proprietor” at the time meant someone who had title to land. The title was then almost always tied up with the aristocratic titles. “Great proprietors” were therefore nobles who owned and controlled large land holdings. The “improvers” tended to be the businessmen—especially the manufacturers and the transportation magnates. Large landowners could just make money by renting parts of their land to tenant farmers. They needed no capital, no vision, not much skill or talent, and they didn’t have to take any risks.
This statement was quite controversial when it was published and remains so. Many libertarians and private sector enthusiasts see giving this power to government is too much and erodes the sanctity of private property. Nonetheless, most local and state government in America subscribes to this point of view thus allowing zoning, city planning, condemnation of private property for public use and the like. In 1976 when it was promulgated, President Ronald Reagan discussed it in his weekly radio address.
This was a tragic prediction for some as it was used as a theoretical reason for little intervention in the Irish famine a few decades later. The then population density is exceeded by many countries today.
In his honor, there have been no more Comanche chiefs selected. Leaders after Parker have had the title of Chairman. Parker is sometimes referred to as “the last Comanche chief.”
The Depression had 25% unemployment and many people lacked even food to eat. Meanwhile, there was a huge amount of unused, idle land in California.
While Turgot was right about so much, this was one of his big errors—the assumption that land was fundamental to and necessary for, wealth. In many countries it is still true, but of the recent billionaires like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Carlos Slim and most others, they own very little land. In the United States and Canada, there are large tracts of land that few or no one will buy and a cast majority of people do not make their living from land.
Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He had previously served as the second vice president of the United States under John Adams between 1797 and 1801. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national levels.
