“There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him ... I love to see honest men and honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses, nor pursue measures by which they may profit, and then profit by their measures.”
-Thomas Jefferson, 1796
As a realist, Thomas Jefferson recognized partisan politics were inevitable under a representative government; but as an idealist, he firmly believed that the vast majority of Americans shared common goals even when differing in means to achieving them.
Patriots would put country before party, ensuring the success of the American experiment in self-governance. This is what Jefferson meant when he declared in his first inaugural address that “we are all republicans: we are all federalists."
Throughout American history, politicians have grappled with balancing the interests of their party and the broader national interest. The challenge of putting country before party continues to the present day.
Click on the image to view a timeline of pivotal patriotic and partisan moments in American history.
“It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques -- techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.” Senator Margaret Chase Smith, 1950
A Civic Engagement Initiative sponsored by and in collaboration with The New York Community Trust – The Peter G. Peterson Fund. 