thomas jefferson analysis essay

Background Essay: The Declaration of Independence

Background Essay: Declaration of Independence

Guiding Question: What were the philosophical bases and practical purposes of the Declaration of Independence?

• I can explain the major events that led the American colonists to question British rule.
• I can explain how the concepts of natural rights and self-government influenced the Founders and the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.

Essential Vocabulary

Directions: As you read the essay, highlight the events from the graphic organizer in Handout B in one color. Think about how each of these events led the American colonists further down the road to declaring independence. Highlight the impacts of those events in another color.

In 1825, Thomas Jefferson reflected on the meaning and principles of the Declaration of Independence. In a letter to a friend, Jefferson explained that the document was an “expression of the American mind.” He meant that it reflected the common sentiments shared by American colonists during the resistance against British taxes in the 1760s and 1770s The Road to Independence

After the conclusion of the French and Indian War, the British sought to increase taxes on their American colonies and passed the Stamp Act (1765) and Townshend Acts (1767). American colonists viewed the acts as British oppression that violated their traditional rights as English subjects as well as their inalienable natural rights. The colonists mostly complained of “taxation without representation,” meaning that Parliament taxed them without their consent. During this period, most colonists simply wanted to restore their rights and liberties within the British Empire. They wanted reconciliation, not independence. But they were also developing an American identity as a distinctive people, which added to the anger over their lack of representation in Parliament and self-government.

After the Boston Tea Party (1773), Parliament passed the Coercive Acts (1774), punishing Massachusetts by closing Boston Harbor and stripping away the right to self-government. As a result, the Continental Congress met in 1774 to consider a unified colonial response. The Congress issued a declaration of rights stating, “That they are entitled to life, liberty, & property, and they have never ceded [given] to any sovereign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.” Military clashes with British forces at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill in Massachusetts showed that American colonists were willing to resort to force to vindicate their claim to their rights and liberties.

In January 1776, Thomas Paine wrote the best-selling pamphlet Common Sense which was a forceful expression of the growing desire of many colonists for independence. Paine wrote that a republican government that followed the rule of law would protect liberties better than a monarchy. The rule of law means that government and citizens all abide by the same laws regardless of political power.

The Second Continental Congress debated the question of independence that spring. On May 10, it adopted a resolution that seemed to support independence. It called on colonial assemblies and popular conventions to “adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce [lead] to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular and America in general.”

Five days later, John Adams added his own even more radical preamble calling for independence: “It is necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the said Crown should be totally suppressed [brought to an end].” This bold declaration was essentially a break from the British.

“Free and Independent States”

On June 7, Richard Henry Lee rose in Congress and offered a formal resolution for independence: “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved [set free] from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.” Congress appointed a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence, while states wrote constitutions and declarations of rights with similar republican and natural rights principles.

On June 12, for example, the Virginia Convention issued the Virginia Declaration of Rights , a document drafted in 1776 to proclaim the natural rights that all people are entitled to. The document was based upon the ideas of Enlightenment thinker John Locke about natural rights and republican government. It read: “That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights … they cannot by any compact, deprive or divest [take away] their posterity [future generations]; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

The Continental Congress’s drafting committee selected Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence because he was well-known for his writing ability. He knew the ideas of John Locke well and had a copy of the Virginia Declaration of Rights when he wrote the Declaration. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams were also members of the committee and edited the document before sending it to Congress.

Still, the desire for independence was not unanimous. John Dickinson and others still wished for reconciliation. On July 1, Dickinson and Adams and their respective allies debated whether America should declare independence. The next day, Congress voted for independence by passing Lee’s resolution. Over the next two days, Congress made several edits to the document, making it a collective effort of the Congress. It adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4. The document expressed the natural rights principles of the independent American republic.

The Declaration opened by stating that the Americans were explaining the causes for separating from Great Britain and becoming an independent nation. It stated that they were entitled to the rights of the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”

The Declaration then asserted its universal ideals, which were closely related to the ideas of John Locke. It claimed that all human beings were created equal as a self-evident truth. They were equally “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” So whatever inequality that might exist in society (such as wealth, power, or status) does not justify one person or group getting more natural rights than anyone else. One way in which humans are equal is in possession of certain natural rights.

The equality of human beings also meant that they were equal in giving consent to their representatives to govern under a republican form of government. All authority flowed from the sovereign people equally. The purpose of that government was to protect the rights of the people. “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The people had the right to overthrow a government that violated their rights in a long series of abuses.

The Declaration claimed the reign of King George III had been a “history of repeated injuries and usurpations ” [illegal taking] of the colonists’ rights. The king exercised political tyranny against the American colonies. For example, he taxed them without their consent and dissolved [closed down] colonial legislatures and charters. Acts of economic tyranny included cutting off colonial trade. The colonists were denied equal justice when they lost their traditional right to a trial by jury in special courts. Acts of military tyranny included quartering , or forcing citizens to house, troops without consent; keeping standing armies in the colonies; waging war against the colonists; and hiring mercenaries , or paid foreign soldiers, to fight them. Repeated attempts by the colonists to petition king and Parliament to address their grievances were ignored or treated with disdain, so the time had come for independence.

In the final paragraph, the representatives appealed to the authority given to them by the people to declare that the united colonies were now free and independent. The new nation had the powers of a sovereign nation and could levy war, make treaties and alliances, and engage in foreign trade. The Declaration ends with the promise that “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Americans had asserted their natural rights, right to self-government, and reasons for splitting from Great Britain. They now faced a long and difficult fight against the most powerful empire in the world to preserve that liberty and independence.

Related Content

The Declaration of Independence Answer Key

The Declaration of Independence

America's Founders looked to the lessons of human nature and history to determine how best to structure a government that would promote liberty. They started with the principle of consent of the governed: the only legitimate government is one which the people themselves have authorized. But the Founders also guarded against the tendency of those in power to abuse their authority, and structured a government whose power is limited and divided in complex ways to prevent a concentration of power. They counted on citizens to live out virtues like justice, honesty, respect, humility, and responsibility.

Background Essay Graphic Organizer and Questions: The Declaration of Independence

Declaration Preamble and Grievances Organizer: Versions A and B

Thomas Jefferson Looks Back on the Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence

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Discussion Questions

In what ways is the Declaration of Independence a timeless document, and in what ways is it a product of a specific time and place? Is it primarily a historical document, or is it relevant to the modern era?

How does the Declaration of Independence define a tyrant? And how convincing is the argument the signers make that George III was a tyrant?

The Declaration of Independence does not establish any laws for the United States. But how do its ideas influence the Constitution or other documents that do establish laws?

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Notes on the State of Virginia

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Notes on the State of Virginia

Thomas Jefferson spent part of nearly each day of his adult life penning notes, memoranda, and letters to correspondents in this country and abroad. The letters numbered in the tens of thousands. His meticulously kept memorandum books recorded financial dealings, weather, and miscellaneous events over a sixty-year period. Yet, the Founding Father wrote only one full-length book,  Notes on the State of Virginia , a book he neither originally intended to write, nor when completed, to publish widely or even under his own name. It was, in a manner of speaking, a “cultural accident.” [1] Still, this accidental creation has been called the “best single statement of Jefferson’s principles, the best reflection of his wide-ranging tastes and talents.” [2]

Yet Jefferson’s work was not without controversy. Historian William Peden writes:

In the  Notes on Virginia  Jefferson at one time or another criticizes most of the vested interests of his time. He attacks the assumptions and usurpation of power by the rich, the powerful, and the well born; the tyranny of the church; the dogmas of the schoolmen; the bigotry of the man on horseback; the enslavement of man by man; the injustice of racial superiority. [3]

Jefferson was well aware that some of his ideas would not sit well with his readers. He worried “whether their publication would do most harm or good.” Of particular concern were his views on slavery and the Virginia state constitution:

It is possible that in my own country these strictures might produce an irritation which would indispose the people towards the two great objects I have in view, that is the emancipation of their slaves, and the settlement of their constitution on a firmer and more permanent basis. [4]

James Madison agreed that Jefferson’s “opinions will displease their respective abettors,” but on the whole the work was “too valuable not to be made known.” [5]

Equally controversial were Jefferson's statements on religious freedom. In Query XVII: "Religion," he defended a separation of church and state, arguing that "it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." [6] These views were to be used against him in the heated presidential campaign of 1800 when, for example, William Linn, a leading Federalist clergyman, penned a campaign pamphlet attacking Jefferson's presumed atheism and warning voters that "let my neighbor once persuade himself that there is no God, and he will soon pick my pocket, and break not only my leg but my neck." [7]

The origin of  Notes  was a request for information about the various American states made to members of the Continental Congress by the secretary to the French legation in Philadelphia, François Marbois. Jefferson received the request for information concerning Virginia indirectly, in late summer of 1780, from Joseph Jones, a member of the Virginia delegation to the Congress. Jones believed the thirty-seven year-old Jefferson, then governor of Virginia, the person best suited to answer the queries. [8]

Although the country was in the throes of revolution, Jefferson apparently began writing soon after receiving the list of queries, and in November reported he was busily occupied with the task. [9] However, in the ensuing months the war in Virginia took a turn for the worse, and Jefferson’s duties as governor took precedence. [10] In the spring of 1781, he experienced the loss of his young daughter, Lucy Elizabeth.

As Jefferson’s term as governor neared completion in the summer of 1781, the Virginia legislature fled west to Charlottesville in order to escape the invading British. General Cornwallis sent a detachment of dragoons under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton to chase down the legislators and, if possible, capture Governor Jefferson at Monticello.  Warned of the British approach , Jefferson escaped to his Bedford County retreat at Poplar Forest in southwest Virginia. While there, he suffered a fall from a horse that curtailed his movement. During this three-to-four-week confinement at Poplar Forest, Jefferson produced much of his reply to Marbois, which he sent to the French legate in December. [11]

The manuscript sent to Marbois was not the same as that which Jefferson would later submit to a French printer in 1785. It was merely the “starting point” for what would become the final work. [12] Marbois had prepared a list of twenty-two queries, which one historian characterized as a “jumble” due to their haphazard organization. [13] Jefferson “sorted and arranged the whole under twenty-three heads, the order proceeding from the natural through the civil to the generally social and moral.” [14] By far the longest response was found in Query VI: "Productions Mineral, Vegetable and Animal." In this section Jefferson attacked the theories of the French naturalists (Voltaire, Abbé Raynal, D’Auberton, and especially Buffon), who frequently cast Jefferson’s native land in an unfavorable light, the animals and people as degenerated and small, and who in other ways were simply wrong.

Although extolling the virtues of America’s native peoples in Query XI: "Aborigines," Jefferson argues in Query XIV: "Laws" that blacks were inferior to both whites and Indians, although he recognizes the possibility that the conditions of enslavement may be responsible for what he perceives as shortcomings. His denigration of blacks in the harshest terms is the most unsettling of Jefferson’s views and has earned the most serious criticism.

In Query XIII: "Constitution" and XIV: "Laws," Jefferson develops the “central rationale of an American polity based upon charters, constitutions, and the laws of the state,“ as well as delivering his explanation of the Revolution. He continues in later sections to build on his “fundamental assertions of republicanism,” providing recommendations for education, manufacture, religion, and manners. [15]

Jefferson relied on many historical and philosophical texts, as well as reports from a host of correspondents when composing  Notes . His knowledge of river systems and Indian tribes to the west, for example, was supplemented by information provided by the geographer Thomas Hutchins. [16] Descriptions of animals came from various friends, including Dr. Thomas Walker, [17] Archibald Cary, [18] and George Rogers Clark. [19] Charles Thomson produced such extensive commentary on Indians that Jefferson added it to the published  Notes  as an appendix. [20]

By the spring of 1784, more than two years after he replied to Marbois, the manuscript had swelled to “treble bulk.” [21] When Jefferson contacted a publisher in Philadelphia prior to this departure to France, he found the cost of publication more than he wanted to pay. [22] He took the manuscript to Paris where he contracted with Philippe Denis Pierres to print 200 copies, which he received in May of 1785. [23]

Once  Notes  was published, Jefferson was unsure of the next step. He wrote to  James Madison  asking him to read it carefully and to discuss it in confidence with "those whose judgments & information you would pay respect to: & if you think it will give no offence I will send a copy to each of the students of W. M. C. and some others to my friends & to your disposal.” Should the opinion of his American colleagues be negative, Jefferson suggested he would “burn the rest.” [24] Madison, joined by their friend George Wythe, counseled that copies be placed in the college library rather than giving them as gifts to each student. He observed that such "an indiscriminate gift might offend some narrow minded parents." [25]

In Paris, Jefferson “gave out a few copies only, and to confidential persons, writing in every copy a restraint against it’s publication.” [26] Nevertheless, a copy fell into the hands of a bookseller who, according to Jefferson, “employed a hireling translator and was about publishing it in the most injurious form possible.” [27] To rescue his work, Jefferson entered into an agreement for the translation into French with the highly respected writer, Abbé Morellet. Unfortunately, the author and this new translator did not see eye-to-eye. Dorothy Medlin writes:

Apparently Jefferson did not realize that he and Morellet had very different attitudes toward translation. In Jefferson’s opinion, a good translation was a strictly literal rendering of the original text ... In Morellet’s opinion, the translator was an active collaborator in the dissemination of liberal ideas to a reading public, which appreciated classical order, clarity, and stylistic elegance. [28]

Consequently, when Jefferson saw the completed work, he was seriously displeased with the translation. [29]

Jefferson then turned to the English publisher John Stockdale, to whom he promised to send a corrected copy if “you chuse to print the work.” [30] Stockdale agreed to print  Notes , although not before stating, “I know there is some bitter Pills relative to our Country.” [31] On August 14, 1787, Jefferson wrote to Stockdale that he had received the initial copies. [32]

The bibliographer, Coolie Verner, tracked the distribution of the original Stockdale edition and noted the various modifications made by Jefferson and others on these copies.  Notes  appeared in some nineteen editions during Jefferson's lifetime (and not always with his knowledge). [33] In 1788 the first American edition was published in Philadelphia “from a pirate copy of the Stockdale edition.” [34]

Jefferson made numerous corrections and changes in his personal copy with every intention of eventually revising his work. [35] Nevertheless, by 1810 he considered a revision “impracticable,” suggesting the additional forty years engaged “in the affairs of mankind would lead me into dilations ending I know not where.” However, he did make clear “that experience indeed has not altered a single principle.” [36] His personal, annotated copy became part of his estate and with permission of his executor, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, an edition was published in Richmond in 1853 incorporating Jefferson's notes and corrections. [37]

The task of revision would be left to another generation. Jefferson judged his work as “nothing more than the measure of a shadow, never stationary, but lengthening as the sun advances, and to be taken anew from hour to hour. it must remain therefore for some other hand to sketch it's appearance at another epoch.” [38]

- Gene Zechmeister, 12/20/13; revised John Ragosta, 2/22/18

Further Sources

• Jefferson, Thomas.  Notes on the State of Virginia . Boston: Lilly and Wait, 1832, Library of Congress PDF transcription from the Joseph Meredith Toner Collection . 
• Jefferson, Thomas.  Notes on the State of Virginia . London: Stockdale, 1787. Jefferson's personal copy of the 1787 edition of  Notes , housed in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia.  Digital images of this book  are also available.
• Kimball, Marie.  Jefferson, War and Peace, 1776 to 1784 . New York: Coward-McCann, 1947. See especially pp. 262-305.
• Massachusetts Historical Society. Thomas Jefferson Papers: An Electronic Archive.  Notes on the State of Virginia . Browse digital images of Jefferson's manuscript copy of  Notes on the State of Virginia , and view additional related documents.
• Peterson, Merrill D.  “Thomas Jefferson’s  Notes on the State of Virginia .”  In  Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture , vol. 7, ed. Roseann Runte, 49-62. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978.
• Wilson, Douglas L.  “The Evolution of Jefferson’s  Notes on the State of Virginia .”   Virginia Magazine of History and Biography  112 (2004): 98-
• ^ Merrill D. Peterson,  “Thomas Jefferson’s  Notes on the State of Virginia ,”  in  Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture , vol. 7, ed. Roseann Runte (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 50.
• ^ Notes , ed. Peden, v.
• ^ Notes , ed. Peden, xxiii.
• ^ Jefferson to Chastellux, June 7, 1785, in  PTJ , 8:184.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Madison to Jefferson, November 15, 1785, in  PTJ , 9:38.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Notes , ed. Peden, 159.
• ^ William Linn,  Serious Considerations on the Election of a President Addressed to the Citizens of the United States  (New York: John Furman, 1800),  19 .
• ^ Notes , ed. Peden, xii.
• ^ Jefferson to D’Anmours, November 30, 1780, in  PTJ , 4:168.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Douglas L. Wilson,  “The Evolution of Jefferson’s  Notes on the State of Virginia ,”   Virginia Magazine of History and Biography  112 (2004): 104. See also Jefferson to Marbois, March 4, 1781, in  PTJ , 5:58.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Wilson,  "The Evolution of Jefferson's  Notes on the State of Virginia ,"  105, 108. See also Jefferson to Marbois, December 20, 1781, in  PTJ , 6: 141-42.  Transcription  available at Founders Online. Note: The manuscript was delayed reaching Marbois, and did not arrive until late spring of 1782. See Jefferson to Marbois, March 24, 1782, in  PTJ , 6:171-72.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Peterson,  “ Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia ,”  52.
• ^ Merrill D. Peterson,  Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography  (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 250.
• ^ Robert A. Ferguson,  “Mysterious Obligation: Jefferson’s N otes on the State of Virginia ,”   American Literature   52 (November 1980): 397, 398.
• ^ Marie Kimball,  Jefferson, War and Peace, 1776 to 1784  (New York: Coward-McCann, 1947), 267. See also  Notes , ed. Peden, xv n12, 10, 102. Kimball provides an extensive list of texts and persons Jefferson consulted.
• ^ Jefferson to Walker, September 25, 1783, in  PTJ , 6:339-40, 6:340n.  Transcription and editorial note  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Cary to Jefferson, October 12, 1783, in  PTJ , 6:342-45.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Jefferson to Clark, December 19, 1781, in  PTJ  , 6:139.  Transcription  available at Founders Online; George Rogers Clark to Jefferson, February 20, 1782, in  PTJ , 6:159-160.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Notes , ed. Peden, 296n1.
• ^ Jefferson to Chastellux, January 16, 1784, in  PTJ , 6:467.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Jefferson,  Autobiography , in Peterson,  Writings , 55.
• ^ Coolie Verner,  “Mr. Jefferson Distributes His Notes,”   Bulletin of the New York Public Library  56 (1952): 3. See also  MB , 1:591.  Transcription  available at Founders Online. The  manuscript copy  which served as the setting copy for the 1785 Paris edition is part of the Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
• ^ Jefferson to Madison, May 11, 1785, in  PTJ , 8:147-48.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Jefferson to Madison, February 8, 1786, in  PTJ , 9:265.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Dorothy Medlin,  “Thomas Jefferson, André Morellet, and the French Version of  Notes on the State of Virginia ,”   William and Mary Quarterly  35, no. 1 (1978): 88.
• ^ Ibid. , 91.
• ^ Jefferson to Stockdale, February 1, 1787, in  PTJ , 11:107.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Stockdale to Jefferson, February 13, 1787, in  PTJ , 11:143.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Jefferson to Stockdale, August 14, 1787, in  PTJ , 12:35.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Verner,  “Mr. Jefferson Distributes His Notes,”  3.
• ^ Coolie Verner,  A Further Checklist of the Separate Editions of Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia  (Charlottesville: Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 1950), 9.
• ^ Jefferson to John W. Campbell, September 3, 1809, in  PTJ:RS , 1:486.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Jefferson to John Melish, December 10, 1814, in  PTJ:RS , 8:133-34.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ Notes , ed. Peden, xx. See also Verner,  A Further Checklist , 23.
• ^ Jefferson to Melish, December 10, 1814, in  PTJ:RS , 8:134.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Benjamin Banneker — B. Banners Letter to T. Jefferson: Analysis of the Utilized Strategies

B. Banners Letter to T. Jefferson: Analysis of The Utilized Strategies

• Categories: Benjamin Banneker

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Words: 680 |

Published: Dec 12, 2018

Words: 680 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Banneker Rhetorical Essay

Works cited.

• Banneker, B. (1791). Letter from Benjamin Banneker to Thomas Jefferson. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/resource/magbell.13600101/?sp=2
• McRae, R. (2018). Slavery and the American Founding: The Letter of Benjamin Banneker to Thomas Jefferson. The Review of Politics, 80(3), 337-361.
• Gregory, J. (2002). Banneker's challenge to Jefferson. History Today, 52(8), 34-40.
• Kiple, K. F., & King, V. (2007). Another Dimension of Slavery: Free People of Color in the Americas. In The Cambridge World History of Slavery (Vol. 3, pp. 362-387). Cambridge University Press.
• Allen, D. S. (2004). The bonds of the founders: Benjamin Banneker and Thomas Jefferson. The William and Mary Quarterly, 61(4), 601-626.
• Stewart, J. (2009). A Martyr's Tale: Nathan Hale and Benjamin Banneker. The Historian, 71(2), 284-303.
• Norton, M. B., Sheriff, C., Blight, D. W., Chudacoff, H. P., Logevall, F., & Bailey, B. (2017). A People and a Nation: A History of the United States (11th ed.). Cengage Learning.
• Stremple, M. (2016). The Rhetorical Triangle: Ethos, Pathos, Logos. The Reading Teacher, 70(2), 183-185.
• Carrigan, W. D., & Webb, C. K. (2016). The Lynching of Persons of Mexican Origin or Descent in the United States, 1848 to 1928. Journal of Social History, 49(2), 338-362.
• Turner, J. K. (2014). The First Emancipator: Slavery, Religion, and the Quiet Revolution of Robert Carter. Oxford University Press.

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