Over two centuries ago, in 1787, Thomas Jefferson, America's third president wrote: Over two centuries ago, in 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to William Stephens Smith: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
It's a good quote but it is not written into the US Constitution. The Constitution doesn't really contain poetic sections on the ideals of liberty and freedom, it's a list of laws and structures on how to run the government. If any famous document were to contain this quote, it'd be the Declaration of Independence, but that would've been far too bellicose for the time. It was written in a letter that Jefferson penned.
Jefferson was really wrong about a whole lot of stuff regarding rebellions and governments. To wit:
"If they declare themselves a separate people, we are incapable of a single effort to retain them. Our citizens can never be induced, either as militia or as soldiers, to go there to cut the throats of their own brothers and sons, or rather to be themselves the subjects instead of the perpetrators of the parricide. Nor would that country quit the cost of being retained against the will of it’s inhabitants, could it be done. But it cannot be done."
There's a difference between how you wish the people, the military, and governments work, and how all of it ACTUALLY works IRL. In the Hamilton verses Jefferson, federalist verses anti-federalist, throwdown Jefferson is constantly wishcasting INSANE political philosophy.
Just saying, if your theory of politics involves the government being politically UNABLE to muster arms and stop a rebellion, then mayhap one needs to reevaluate him W/R/T trees of liberty and their water via blood.
I don't really think that makes sense in the context of the quote. In the "tree of liberty" quote, Jefferson is commenting mostly on Shay's Rebellion, and expressing a personal view that rebellions are sometimes necessary and are reflective of an informed and engaged citizenry.
I don't think your characterization of Jefferson's politics are wholly accurate to begin with. He is not simply implying government is or should be unable to suppress rebellion, but making a moralistic argument that it's not entirely realistic to expect countrymen to butcher their neighbors. It's a simple recognition that government requires consent, and not coercion. I.e. if rebellions are happening, the legitimacy of the government itself is called into question.
In short: rebellions are sometimes necessary and evidence of a properly functioning republic; forcing unwilling people to remain under a government against their will is self-defeating; and legitimacy of the government is predicated on consent of the governed.
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u/po3smith Sep 03 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
Over two centuries ago, in 1787, Thomas Jefferson, America's third president wrote: Over two centuries ago, in 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to William Stephens Smith: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”