Thomas Jefferson: "The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It has only been slumbering. …

"The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It has only been slumbering. … ... But [the people's] virtuous feelings have been played on by some fact with more fiction; they have been the dupes of artful maneuvers, and made for a moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves. But times and truth dissipated the delusion, and opened their eyes." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Lomax, 1799. ME 10:123