It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigour.
 Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785). copy citation

Context

“The loss by the transportation of commodities across the Atlantic will be made up in happiness and permanence of government. The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigour. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.
Page 176 QUERY XX.
A NOTICE of the commercial productions particular to the state, and of those objects which the inhabitants are obliged to get from Europe and from other parts of the world?” source

Meaning and analysis

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