Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
941
AUTHOR:
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
QUOTATION:
The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow,) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little to-day and a little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one.
ATTRIBUTION:
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Charles Hammond, August 18, 1821.—The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb, vol. 15, pp. 331–32 (1903).
