Quote
"Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education & free discussion are the antidotes of both."
"But it will be asked, are we to have no banks? Are merchants and others to be deprived of the resource of short accommodations, found so convenient? I answer, let us have banks; but let them be such as are alone to be found in any country on earth, except Great Britain. There is not a bank of discount on the continent of Europe (at least there was not one when I was there) which offers anything but cash in exchange for discounted bills."

Thomas Jefferson was an American Founding Father who served as the second vice president of the United States from 1797 to 1801 and as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. He was a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism, and natural rights, and produced formative documents and decisions at the state,
"Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education & free discussion are the antidotes of both."
"A free people [claim] their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate."
"History has informed us that bodies of men, as well as individuals, are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny."
"Cappon, Lester J., ed. The Adams-Jefferson Letters (1959)"
"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things."
"The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them."