Jefferson on Taxes - 1813

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reeactments,
because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of
the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest
government ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted,
to be free."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to John Wayles Eppes, 24 June 1813)

Reference: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Library of Congress,
American Memory Collection