In an interview with Jeffrey Brown on PBS, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) referred to the current protests on health care as a “modern-day political rebellion in America,” and quoted Thomas Jefferson to say that rebellion is a good thing — but it should be done in a civil way:
Boehner: And so this conversation that’s underway is healthy for our democracy. It was Thomas Jefferson 220 years ago who said, “A little rebellion now and then is good for our democracy.”
Brown: Right, but “rebellion” is a charged word, of course, because the rebellion back then was a serious matter.
Boehner: It was. But having Americans engaged in this public debate is healthy. And I would hope that it would continue, but continue in a civil way.
To be exact, Jefferson’s famous quote was regarding Shays’ Rebellion, an uprising in the 1780’s by rural Massachusetts farmers against the confiscation of their lands, when they were unable to pay their debts to the business elites in Boston. Jefferson argued in a letter to James Madison that the rebels should only face a mild, nominal punishment:
“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
