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Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826

"Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 2"

Again, when the poor woman came
to ask a charity in Philadelphia, you whispered, that she looked like
a drunkard, and that half a dollar was enough to give her for the
ale-house. Those who want the dispositions to give, easily find reasons
why they ought not to give. When I sought her out afterwards, and did
what I should have done at first, you know, that she employed the money
immediately towards placing her child at school. If our country, when
pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by
its heads instead of its' hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging
on a gallows as high as Hainan's. You began to calculate, and to compare
wealth and numbers: we threw up a few pulsations of our blood; we
supplied enthusiasm against wealth and numbers; we put our existence to
the hazard, when the hazard seemed against us, and we saved our country:
justifying, at the same time, the ways of Providence, whose precept is,
to do always what is right, and leave the issue to him. In short, my
friend, as far as my recollection serves me, I do not know that I ever
did a good thing on your suggestion, or a dirty one without it.


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