Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Sovereignty

• Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Pursuit Of Happiness, Government, People

  Declaration of Independence (1776).

• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Change, Happiness

  Declaration of Independence (1776).

• A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rights, Law, Voting

• If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation... to a continuance in union... I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Unions, Separation, States

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.284

• [We should be] determined... to sever ourselves from the union we so much value rather than give up the rights of self-government... in which alone we see liberty, safety and happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Giving Up, Rights, Government

• That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Independent, Judging, Nullification

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