I think we're all pretty sure that when it came to badass quotes about freedom, Jefferson is the all time champion. I mean, the guy wrote the Declaration of Independence for heaven's sake. That automatically gets him into the final four of freedom right there.
This particular shirt is based from his quote "I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery." Technically, T.J. was waxing eloquent with his boy Madison when he wrote it in 1787, going with the stuffy Latin version Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.
The fact that he swapped in the Latin with buddies likely meant it was a pretty common rejoinder for the Founding Fathers crowd. "Yo T.J., dangerous freedoms my brotha. Dangerous freedoms."
Full text:
"Societies exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without government, as among our Indians. 2. Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight degree, and in our states in a great one. 3. Under governments of force: as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics. To have an idea of the curse of existence under these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep. It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that the 1st. condition is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population. The second state has a great deal of good in it. The mass of mankind under that enjoys a precious degree of liberty and happiness. It has it's evils too: the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing. Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem. Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
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Type: Hoodie Sweatshirt
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