evidence: FACT CHECK: Did Thomas Jefferson Say, ‘That Government Is Best Which Governs The Least’? The right-leaning organization Turning Point USA claimed in a Facebook post April 6 that founding father Thomas Jefferson said, "That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves." [...] "I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least;’ and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically," Thoreau wrote in the 1849 publication.