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THE LIMITS ON POLITICAL DISCOURSE
>I've searched your site (and others) extensively, but have been unable >to come up with a quote from Thomas Jefferson that I am quite sure >exists. It has to do with political discourse and any attempts to limit >it (i.e., limit money in campaigns). Can you steer me in the right >direction? I feel quite sure that the topic of campaign contributions was never addressed by Jefferson, although he did write about the free communication between citizens and public functionaries. Most of these are on my site under "The Right of Free Correspondence," although some of them are new and are not yet posted to the website (I am just finishing up going through the 20 vol. set of the Writings). Below are several related to this topic. They all relate to ideas, not money, although some of the more general statements could possibly be taken as applying to contributions also. "The right of our fellow citizens to represent to the public functionaries their opinion on proceedings interesting to them is unquestionably a constitutional right, often useful, sometimes necessary, and will always be respectfully acknowledged by me." --Thomas Jefferson to the New Haven Committee, 1801. ME 10:269 "All of our fellow citizens'... safety is passed away whenever their representatives are placed, in the exercise of their functions, under the direction and coercion of either of the other departments of government; and one of their most interesting rights is lost when that of a free communication of sentiment by speaking or writing is suppressed." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Petition, 1797. ME 17:363 "A right of free correspondence between citizen and citizen on their joint interests, whether public or private and under whatsoever laws these interests arise (to wit: of the State, of Congress, of France, Spain, or Turkey), is a natural right; it is not the gift of any municipal law, either of England, or Virginia, or of Congress, but in common with all other natural rights, it is one of the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797. ME 9:422 "The right of free correspondence is not claimed under the Constitution of the United States, nor the laws or treaties derived from it, but as a natural right, placed originally under the protection of our municipal laws and retained under the cognizance of our own courts." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Petition, 1797. ME 17:361 "For the Judiciary to interpose in the Legislative department between the constituent and his representative, to control them in the exercise of their functions or duties towards each other, to overawe the free correspondence which exists and ought to exist between them, to dictate what may pass between them and to punish all others, to put the representative into jeopardy of criminal prosecution, of vexation, expense and punishment before the Judiciary if his communications, public or private, do not exactly square with their ideas of fact or right or with their designs of wrong, is to put the Legislative department under the feet of the Judiciary, is to leave us, indeed, the shadow but to take away the substance of representation, which requires essentially that the representative be as free as his constituents would be, that the same interchange of sentiment be lawful between him and them as would be lawful among themselves were they in the personal transaction of their own business; is to do away the influence of the people over the proceedings of their representatives by excluding from their knowledge by the terror of punishment, all but such information or misinformation as may suit their own views." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Petition, 1797. ME 17:359 Hope that helps. Offhand, that's the best I could do. Best wishes, Eyler Coates