“No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and.... their minds are to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and to be deterred from those of vice.... These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure and order of government.” Thomas Jefferson

According to Thomas Jefferson in this statement, a government is based on three primary essential premises: Control by the people, (doing what is right) for the people, and honesty. These were the foundation of the United States of America, and its Constitution, which remained a model of democracy for some time.