"The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government. The course of reflection in which we are immersed here on the elementary principles of society has presented this question to my mind; & that no such obligation can be so transmitted I think very capable of proof. I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, ‘that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living’: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by any individual ceases to be his when himself ceases to be, & reverts to the society."
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Presidents of the United StatesUnitarians from the United StatesFounding Fathers of the United States of AmericaUnited States Secretaries of StatePoliticians from Virginia
Original Language: English
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Letter to James Madison, (6 September 1789)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
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Thomas Jefferson
1743 – 1826
US-amerikanischer Politiker und der dritte Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten (1801–1809).
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