Fake Jefferson on Work
“The Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those that are willing to work, and give to those who would not,” the Facebook group Save Southern Heritage and History posted. But, as you can guess by now, Jefferson never uttered this phrase.
As USA Today points out, Jefferson did say write something similar in spirit, if only because he was translating an economic text from French to English:
To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association — the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, & the fruits acquired by it.
It certainly sounds different when you learn the real quote. And even then, you can’t say that it’s Jefferson’s idea. He simply translated it 1816 from Antoine Destutt de Tracy’s Treatise on Political Economy.
