Political Quotes

“if Thomas Jefferson could be resurrected today, he would be surprised by many things that he found. As my good friend from Texas just indicated, he would be enormously surprised by the size of our Federal Government, because he had envisioned a country in which we had a very limited Federal Government. But there is something else that I remember about Thomas Jefferson that would really surprise him today. What he wanted for his new country was a largely agrarian society, with just enough cities to provide the manufacturing necessary to sustain an agricultural economy. He wanted this, he said, because he didn't want his new country to be blighted by the decadence of cities, as were the countries of Europe and the British Isles that they came from. He really, really would be quite surprised if he could be resurrected and come to our country today, wouldn't he, where far, far more than half of our people live in cities far larger than any he could have imagined at that time.”