Thomas Jefferson Says "Pardon And Pacify," Rebels

"What country before, ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion?  And 
what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to 
time, that his people preserve the spirit of resistance.  Let them take arms.  The 
remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them.  What signify 
a few lives lost in a century or two."
- Thomas Jefferson to Col. William S. Smith, 1787, referring to Shay rebellion

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I 
wish it to be always kept alive.  It will often be exercised when wrong, but 
better so than not to be exercised at all."
- Thomas Jefferson, to Abagail Adams, 1787

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion."
- Thomas Jefferson to Col. William S. Smith, 1787 (referring to Shay rebellion)

"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."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787