Thomas Jefferson on Political Parties

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself.  Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven bu with a party, I would not go there at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.