"On the basis of this quote, we can conclude that Jefferson would have approved of Timothy McVeigh's blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995." Perhaps. Although I believe he was getting more towards a consensus of the population acting together than a single man or small group acting unilaterally. In any case, he definitely would NOT have approved of the government's tactic of hiding behind a day-care/kindergarten full of children and then using the deaths of these children as a means to demonize the man who stood up against them. Government installations, particularly militant ones (as in the ATF), are ALWAYS targets (and legitimate ones, at that) and unaffiliated civilians and children should be kept out of harm's way and well away from such installations.