Yesterday, I expressed my disappointment in House Minority Leader Skip Stam’s “Fuquay-Varina quick takings” bill.
So, today I read, courtesy of Under the Dome, that Rep. Stam’s quoted Thomas Jefferson as part of his argument against a bill that wold authorize the use of taxpayer money for local campaigns. How would Jefferson feel about the “Fuquay-Varina quick takings” bill? He’d be just as angry as I am.
Here are a few quotes from Jefferson on property rights for Rep. Stam to consider:
“Our wish… is that… equality of rights [be] maintained, and that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry or that of his fathers.” –Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805.
“The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management.” –Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.
“To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association–‘the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.'” –Thomas Jefferson: Note in Destutt de Tracy’s “Political Economy,” 1816.
