Jefferson's view on what it should be: "I am not an advocate

Posted on: June 30, 2022 at 11:53:20 CT

for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

-On the wall of the Jefferson Memorial, excerpted from a letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816.