Thomas Jefferson Quotes

I believe the states can best govern our home concerns, and the general government our foreign ones.

The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.

The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves and united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only.

There is as far as I know, no example in history, of any state voluntarily ceding power from the centre to its constituent parts.

In its exterior relations - abroad - this government is the sole and exclusive representative of the united majesty, sovereignty, and power of the States, constituting this great and glorious Union. To the rest of the world, we are one. Neither State nor State government is known beyond our borders. Within, it is different.

Our political machine, composed of thirteen independent sovereignties, have been perpetually operating against each other and against the federal head ever since the peace.

Congress has a constitutional right to an authoritative voice in declaring and prescribing the foreign policy of the United States. It is the constitutional duty of the Executive Department to respect that policy, not less in diplomatic negotiations than in the use of national force when authorized by law.

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce;... the powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and prosperities of the people.

This is a country that historically has had very little central government.

Partisan politics should stop at the boundaries of the United States.

America after Trump may be more like the European Union; a rambling alliance of interstate compacts, rather than the forced marriage of a country that emerged after the Civil War.

When the balance of power is right and the government is right sized, California still can be California. It can be, in my opinion, as crazy as it wants to be. And Texas, in other's opinion, can be as crazy as it wants to be. But we're still brothers in the union.

A local spirit will infallibly prevail much more in the members of Congress than a national spirit will prevail in the legislatures of the particular States.

We have never meddled in the domestic affairs of any state and we never will.

We are not a nation, but a union, a confederacy of equal and sovereign states.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Things are different in the international relations between states. In this respect, I am neither a friend, nor bride or groom [of the West].

Taking legislative authority away from the federal government doesn't necessarily mean freer individuals. It might just mean granting vastly more authority to the states--which already have far broader police powers than most of us would care to admit.

Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that's even better.

I think that decisions should rest in the hands of the states. I'm a federalist.

We've had great conversations with the United Kingdom and meetings, Israel, Mexico, Japan, China and Canada, really, really productive conversations.

If we are in earnest about giving the Union energy and duration we must abandon the vain project of legislating upon the States in their collective capacities.

[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore . . . never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market.

I never did ask more, nor ever was willing to accept less, than for all the States, and the people thereof, to take and hold their places, and their rights, in the Union, under the Constitution of the United States. For this alone have I felt authorized to struggle; and I seek neither more nor less now.

Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.