Thomas Jefferson Quotes
Restrain our citizens from embarking individually in a war in which their country takes no part …. How desirable, then, must it be in a Government like ours to see its citizens adopt individually the views, the interests, and the conduct which their country should pursue, divesting themselves of those passions and partialities which tend to lessen useful friendships and to embarrass and embroil us in the calamitous scenes of Europe.
War had broken out in Europe and Jefferson enumerated a series of actions so that the United States would remain neutral. He was concerned that individual Americans would partake in foreign wars and then be captures of have to be ransomed or would give offence to some other nation who would assume that the American was acting with government approval and was allied with an enemy. The issue of American mercenaries fighting in foreign conflicts has been controversial ever since.
Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, 3rd President of the United States (Democratic Republican, VA), 3rd State of the Nation Address, October 17, 1803
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
declared against the United States by Barbary Algeria
The then Vice President was accosted on the train by southerners who believed that he was on his way to his home state of Tennessee to persuade the legislature not to secede from the union. Amid cries to hang him and after he was punched by one of the mob, ex-Senator Wigfall—the man who had received the surrender sword at Sumter, who was also on the train, persuaded the crowd to hear Johnson out. Johnson thus began his speech which was potentially for his life, but never wavered from his view that secession was a mistake. Most of the crowd calmed down and as the train pulled out, they let him go though there were still a few shouts for “hanging.” There was no secret service protection for the President or vice President at the outbreak of the Civil War. Pinkerton had organized some informal protection for the President and thwarted some plots, but it was the Vice President who was attacked first. And there was not sufficient protection to prevent Lincoln’s assassination.
He was referring to President Jefferson’s inclination to send the military against the Barbary Pirates. They had an incredible extortion racket going in the Mediterranean. If nations would pay them an annual sum each year, they would not attack and seize merchant ships of that country and sell the ships and goods while holding the sailors for ransom. Note that Congress was not very well respected at that time which Jay and most leaders did not think was a good thing, much like in the 21st century.
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.
