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In a post “Trump vs. The Establishment Who will Win?” on 1/24/2025, Paul Craig Roberts mentioned that Thomas Jefferson had said we should have a revolution every 200 years.

That jarred with my own recollection. I was pretty sure that Jefferson had said we should have a revolution every 20 years.

Well, the new AI from China, DeepSeek, was the big news of the day today, having caused the stock market to tremble, and I had never tried an AI Chat Box (or whatever) so I decided to give DeepSeek a look to see who was correct…PCR or me.

I got a nice response from DeepSeek. I still have a quibble with them…but here’s their response:

Thomas Jefferson did express sentiments that could be interpreted as advocating for periodic renewal or revolution, but he did not explicitly state that there should be a revolution every 20 years. One of his most famous quotes on this topic comes from a letter he wrote to James Madison on January 30, 1787, where he said:

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

This statement reflects Jefferson’s belief that occasional upheaval might be necessary to preserve freedom and prevent tyranny. However, the idea of a revolution every 20 years is often attributed to a more general interpretation of his views rather than a direct quote. Jefferson did express a belief in the importance of each generation reevaluating and renewing its laws and institutions, but he did not specifically call for violent revolution at regular intervals.

Well…I’m pretty sure a “generation” is shorter than 200 years…but that’s probably just me.