Thomas Jefferson was born on the Shadwell Plantation
in Albemarle County, Virginia on 2 April (Old Style) 1743.
His birthday became April 13 when the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1752.
That year he began studying classics and French in a Latin school
under Rev. William Douglas in Goochland County, and Thomas
lived in the home of Douglas for five years except for summers.
Jefferson grew up near the frontier and Nature.
Jefferson was 11 years younger than George Washington,
7.5 years younger than John Adams, 8 years older than James Madison,
and 15 years older than James Monroe.
His father Peter Jefferson surveyed land and developed his farms.
He was elected to the House of Burgesses in 1754 and served for a year.
He died in the summer of 1757.
Thomas was the third of the ten children, and he and the other son Randolph
each inherited half of their father’s estate.
Thomas inherited a seal from his father, and later he changed his motto to
“Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”
He also inherited and began reading the ten-volume
Histoire d'Angleterre (History of England) by Paul de Rapin-Thoyras (1661-1725)
that covered from the ancient British to the accession of William III and Mary II in 1689.
In 1758 Thomas went to a boarding school at Fredericksville,
and he began studying under Rev. James Maury
who helped him improve his Latin and learn Greek.
He grew to a height of six feet two inches which
was about an inch shorter than George Washington.
On 25 March 1760 Thomas enrolled in the College of William and Mary
at Williamsburg which was the second college in the thirteen colonies after Harvard.
There the Scottish Dr. William Small was his first good teacher,
and he taught mathematics, ethics, rhetoric, and literature.
Jefferson also learned French and studied natural philosophy.
In his Autobiography he wrote,
My father’s education had been quite neglected;
but being of a strong mind, sound judgment and eager
after information, he read much and improved himself
insomuch that he was chosen
with Joshua Fry professor of Mathematics.
In William & Mary College to continue the boundary line
between Virginia & North Carolina which had been begun
by Col. Byrd and was afterwards employed
with the same Mr. Fry to make the 1st map of Virginia
which had ever been made, that of Captain Smith
being merely a conjectural sketch.
They possessed excellent materials for so much
of the country as is below the blue ridge;
little being then known beyond that ridge.
He was the 3d or 4th settler of the part of the country
in which I live, which was about 1737.
He died August 17, 1757, leaving my mother a widow
who lived till 1776 with 6 daughters & 2 sons, myself the elder.
To my younger brother he left his estate on James River
called Snowden after the supposed birthplace of the family.
To myself the lands on which I was born & live.
He placed me at the English school at 5 years of age
and at the Latin at 9 where I continued until his death.
My teacher Mr. Douglas a clergyman from Scotland was
but a superficial Latinist, less instructed in Greek,
but with the rudiments of these languages
he taught me French, and on the death of my father
I went to the Rev. Mr. Maury a correct classical scholar
with whom I continued two years and then went to
William and Mary College, to wit, in the spring of 1760
where I continued 2 years.
It was my great good fortune, and what probably fixed
the destinies of my life that Dr. William Small of Scotland
was then professor of Mathematics, a man profound
in most of the useful branches of science,
with a happy talent of communication, correct and
gentlemanly manners, and an enlarged and liberal mind.
He, most happily for me, became soon attached to me
and made me his daily companion when not engaged
in the school; and from his conversation I got
my first views of the expansion of science
and of the system of things in which we are placed.
Fortunately the Philosophical chair became vacant
soon after my arrival at college, and he was appointed
to fill it per interim: and he was the first who ever
gave in that college regular lectures
in Ethics, Rhetoric and Belles lettres.
He returned to Europe in 1762, having previously filled up
the measure of his goodness to me, by procuring for me,
from his most intimate friend G. Wythe, a reception
as a student of law, under his direction, and introduced me
to the acquaintance and familiar table of Governor Fauquier,
the ablest man who had ever filled that office.
With him, and at his table, Dr. Small and Mr. Wythe,
his amici omnium horarum, and myself,
formed a partie quarree, and to the habitual conversations
on these occasions I owed much instruction.
Mr. Wythe continued to be my faithful and beloved Mentor
in youth, and my most affectionate friend through life.
In 1767, he led me into the practice of the law at the bar
of the General court, at which I continued
until the revolution shut up the courts of justice.
In 1769, I became a member of the legislature
by the choice of the county in which I live, and
continued in that until it was closed by the revolution.
I made one effort in that body for the permission
of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected:
and indeed, during the regal government,
nothing liberal could expect success.
Our minds were circumscribed within narrow limits
by an habitual belief that it was our duty to be subordinate
to the mother country in all matters of government,
to direct all our labors in subservience to her interests,
and even to observe a bigoted intolerance
for all religions but hers.
The difficulties with our representatives were
of habit and despair, not of reflection and conviction.
Experience soon proved that they could bring their minds
to rights on the first summons of their attention.
But the king’s council, which acted as another
house of legislature, held their places at will
and were in most humble obedience to that will:
the Governor too, who had a negative on our laws held
by the same tenure, and with still greater devotedness to it:
and last of all the Royal negative closed
the last door to every hope of amelioration.
On the 1st of January, 1772 I was married
to Martha Skelton widow of Bathurst Skelton,
and daughter of John Wayles, then 23 years old.
Mr. Wayles was a lawyer of much practice,
to which he was introduced more by his great industry,
punctuality and practical readiness,
than to eminence in the science of his profession.
He was a most agreeable companion, full of pleasantry
and good humor, and welcomed in every society.
He acquired a handsome fortune, died in May 1773,
leaving three daughters and the portion which came on
that event to Mrs. Jefferson, after the debts should be paid,
which were very considerable, was about equal
to my own patrimony, and consequently
doubled the ease of our circumstances.1
Jefferson described how he became interested in politics
as the Stamp Tax was imposed in 1765.
When the famous Resolutions of 1765
against the Stamp-act were proposed,
I was yet a student of law in Williamsburg.
I attended the debate however at the door of the lobby
of the House of Burgesses, and heard the splendid display
of Mr. Henry’s talents as a popular orator.
They were great indeed; such as
I have never heard from any other man.
He appeared to me to speak as Homer wrote.
Mr. Johnson, a lawyer and member
from the Northern Neck, seconded the resolutions,
and by him the learning and the logic
of the case were chiefly maintained.
My recollections of these transactions may be seen
on page 60 of the life of Patrick Henry by Wirt
to whom I furnished them.
In May 1769 a meeting of the General Assembly
was called by the Governor, Lord Botetourt.
I had then become a member; and to that meeting became
known the joint resolutions and address of the Lords and
Commons of 1768-9 on the proceedings in Massachusetts.
Counter-resolutions and an address to the King by the
House of Burgesses were agreed to with little opposition,
and a spirit manifestly displayed of considering
the cause of Massachusetts as a common one.
The Governor dissolved us: but we met the next day
in the Apollo of the Raleigh tavern, formed ourselves
into a voluntary convention, drew up articles of association
against the use of any merchandise imported
from Great Britain, signed and recommended them
to the people, repaired to our several counties and
were re-elected without any other exception than of the
very few who had declined assent to our proceedings.2
Jefferson had learned how to study under tutelage by Small.
While at college he studied about 15 hours a day
starting at 6 a.m. and often continued after midnight.
In his later years Jefferson’s young friend
Francis Walker Gilmer described his methods this way:
His mind must have been by nature one of uncommon
capaciousness and retention, of wonderful clearness
and as rapid as is consistent with accurate thoughts.
His application from early youth
was not only intense but unremitted.
When young, he adopted a system, perhaps an entire plan
of life from which neither the exigencies of business
nor the allurements of pleasure could drive or seduce him.
Much of his success is to be ascribed
to methodical industry.3
Jefferson left William and Mary College in 1762,
and George Wythe became his mentor in his law office.
Jefferson read Edward Coke’s Commentaries Upon Littleton and his Institutes.
He would later study the philosophy of Francis Bacon, John Locke and David Hume,
the political theories of Montesquieu’s On the Spirit of the Laws,
and Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England.
Jefferson became interested in the Scottish Henry Home Kames,
and he read his Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion,
Historical Law-Tracts, and his Tract on Property.
Later Jefferson read many histories including
David Hume’s 6-volume History of England.
Jefferson’s favorite writers were Homer, Euripides, Cicero, Shakespeare, Milton,
and Bolingbroke, and he would write out favorite passages in his Commonplace Book.
This is what Jefferson wrote in his notebook about Montesquieu:
He considers virtue or the Amor Patriae, as the energetic
principle of the democratic republic;
moderation, that of an aristocratic republic;
honor, that of a limited monarchy;
and fear, that of a despotism; and shows that every
government should provide that its energetic principle
should be the object of the education of its youth.
That its laws also should be relative to the same principle.
In a democracy, equality and frugality should be promoted
by the laws, as they nurse the amor patriae.4
At the age of 21 Jefferson was allowed to choose which half
of his father’s property he wanted, and that included slaves.
He chose the 2,500 acres by the Rivanna River and another 2,500 acres.
On 14 November 1764 the Virginia House of Burgesses
approved these four resolutions:
Resolved, That a most humble and dutiful Address
be presented to his Majesty, imploring his Royal Protection
of his faithful Subjects, the People of this Colony,
in the Enjoyment of all their natural and civil Rights,
as Men, and as Descendants of Britons;
which Rights must be violated, if Laws respecting
the internal Government, and Taxation of themselves,
are imposed upon them by any other Power than that
derived from their own Consent, by and with the
Approbation of their Sovereign, or his Substitute:
And professing, that as these People have at all Times
been forward and zealous to demonstrate their Loyalty
and Affection to his Majesty, and especially by a ready
Compliance with the Requisitions of the Crown to bear
their Part in the late War, which they engaged to do
with the more Alacrity, from a Confidence that
the Royal Benignity would never suffer them
to be deprived of their Freedom
(that sacred Birthright and inestimable Blessing)
so they would be willing to contribute their Proportion
of any Expenses necessary for the Defense and Security
of America, as far as Circumstances of the People,
already distressed with Taxes, would admit of, provided it
were left to themselves to raise it, by Modes least grievous.
Resolved, That a Memorial be prepared to be laid before
the Right Honorable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal
in Parliament assembled, intreating their Lordships,
by a proper and reasonable Interposition and Exertion
of their Power, not to suffer the People of this Colony
to be enslaved or oppressed by Laws respecting their
internal Polity, and Taxes imposed on them in a Manner
that is unconstitutional; and declaring our Hopes that
the Preservation of the Rights of any of his Majesty’s faithful
Subjects will be thought by their Lordships as an Object
worthy the Attention of those hereditary Guardians and
Protectors of British Liberty and Property, and especially as
the Subversion of those Rights, in the Instance of taxing the
People of Virginia, at this Time, when they are most
grievously burthened by the Expenses of the late War,
must diminish that Consumption of Manufactures furnished
to them by their Mother Country, by which her wealth is
very greatly augmented, and her Prosperity continued.
Resolved, That a Memorial be prepared to be laid before
the Honorable the House of Commons, to assert, with
decent Freedom, the Rights and Liberties of the People
of this Colony as British Subjects, to remonstrate that Laws
for their internal Government, or Taxation, ought not to be
imposed by any Power but what is delegated to their
Representatives, chosen by themselves, and to represent
that the People are already taxed, for several Years
to come, so heavily, for Expenses incurred in the late War,
amounting to near Half a Million, that an Increase of that
Burthen by the Parliament, at this Time, would be not only
a Violation of the most sacred and valuable Principle
of the Constitution, but such an Oppression as would
probably draw after it a Desolation in many Parts of the
Country, and must divert those of the Inhabitants,
who could not remove from it, to manufacture what Articles
they have hitherto been supplied with from
the Mother Country, and consequently one grand Source
of Wealth and Prosperity will be stopped up.
Resolved, That the Committee appointed to correspond
with the Agent of this Colony in Great Britain pursuant
to an Act of Assembly For appointing an agent,
be directed to answer the Letter of the 25th of June last
from the Committee of the House of Representatives
of the Province of Massachusetts Bay to the Honorable
the Speaker of the House of Representatives
for the Province of Virginia, and to assure that Committee
that the Assembly of Virginia are highly sensible of
the very great Importance it is, as well to the Colony
of Virginia, as to America in general, that the Subjects
of Great Britain in this Part of its Dominions should continue
in Possession of their ancient and most valuable Right
of being taxed only by Consent of their Representatives,
and that the Assembly here will omit no Measures
in their Power to prevent such essential Injury from
being done to the Rights and Liberties of the People.5
The British Parliament approved the Stamp Act on 22 March 1765.
While he was studying law at Williamsburg, Jefferson had become
interested in politics during the Stamp Act crisis in 1765 that
involved nonviolent resistance to British imperialism.
On May 29 Jefferson and another law student John Tyler listened to
the House of Burgesses from the crowded hallway to the Stamp Act Resolves
submitted by Patrick Henry, and as amended the following
were copied from the record by Wiliam Wirt:
1. Resolved That the first adventurers and settlers
of this his Majesty’s Colony and Dominion of Virginia
brought with them and transmitted to their posterity
and all other his Majesty’s subjects since inhabiting in this
his Majesty’s said colony, all the Liberties, Privileges,
Franchises and Immunities, that have at any time been
held, enjoyed and possessed by the people of Great Britain.
2. Resolved That by two Royal Charters, granted by
King James the First the colonists aforesaid are declared
entitled to all Liberties, Privileges and Immunities of
Denizens and natural Subjects to all intents & purposes, as if
they had been abiding and born within the realm of England.
3. Resolved That the taxation of the people
by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves
to represent them, who can only know what taxes
the people are able to bear, or the easiest method
of raising them, and must themselves be affected
by every tax laid on the people, is the only security
against a burthensome taxation, and the
distinguishing characteristic of British freedom,
without which the ancient constitution cannot exist.
4. Resolved That his Majesty’s liege people of this
his most ancient and loyal colony have without interruption
enjoyed the inestimable right of being governed by such
laws, respecting their internal polity and taxation, as are
derived from their own consent, with the approbation of
their Sovereign or his substitute; and that the same hath
never been forfeited or yielded up but hath been constantly
recognized by the Kings & People of Great Britain.6
Jefferson learned that the Rivanna River could be modified so that
it could be a route for crops, and he raised money for the project.
His older sister Jane died on October 1, and Jefferson mourned for her.
In October the Assembly in Virginia funded clearing rivers, and that
included the Rivanna River and involved Jefferson in the project.
In the spring of 1766 Jefferson went to Philadelphia,
and Dr. William Shippen Jr. inoculated him against smallpox.
Then he went to New York where he got to know
Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts in a boarding house.
Wythe helped Jefferson become a lawyer in 1767.
At that time the lawyers were boycotting the courts,
and there was no need for lawyers.
As an attorney Jefferson represented slaves without
accepting a fee to help them win their freedom.
On 15 June 1767 King George III signed the Townshend Ministry Act that
suspended New York’s legislature until they cooperated with the Quartering Act.
The Townshend Acts were imposed by the British on the colonies
in the summer of 1767, and the Admiralty Court Act was passed in March 1768.
Jefferson was elected to the Virginia legislature in December 1768,
and he took his seat at Williamsburg in early May 1769.
Jefferson was sworn into the Council Chamber at Williamsburg on May 8.
On May 16 they approved the Virginia Resolves unanimously,
and their session lasted only ten days.
On the ninth day they declared that the British Parliament
could not impose taxes on them without their consent.
The British Governor Norborne Berkeley known as Baron Botetourt
dissolved the House of Burgesses, and
Jefferson and others began meeting in the Raleigh Tavern.
They elected Peyton Randolph to moderate their business,
and they agreed on a nonimportation and nonconsumption agreement
that George Mason and George Washington in Fairfax County had proposed.
Jefferson was more radical than most,
and he admired the oratory of Patrick Henry.
After the Virginia Assembly closed, in the summer of 1769
Jefferson ordered from London 14 books on government.
On 1 February 1770 while Jefferson was in Charlottesville on business,
his ancestral home at Shadwell burned to the ground,
and his greatest loss was of his library of 1,256 volumes.
In April 1770 Jefferson defended Samuel Howell, a mulatto
who had a white grandmother and was suing his master for his freedom.
Jefferson cited Pufendorf’s treatise over twenty times
and lost the case, though he argued,
Under the law of nature all men are born free.
Everyone comes into the world with the right
to his own person which includes the liberty
of moving and using it at his own will….
This is what is called personal liberty,
and is given him by the author of nature,
because it is necessary for his own sustenance.7
In June 1770 Col. Thomas Jefferson was the tenth person in Virginia to sign
another Association agreement that opposed Parliament’s Declaratory Act.
In November 1770 Jefferson moved into a small cottage made with bricks
while the main house he designed was being built at Monticello.
In 1771 he was working in Williamsburg as a lawyer.
In late November the freeholders re-elected Jefferson,
and he declined to serve on the county court.
Jefferson was influenced by Francis Bacon and John Locke,
especially his Second Treatise on Government.
Yet Jefferson in his Literary Commonplace Book copied out more quotations
from the Philosophical Works by Bolingbroke than any other writer.
Here is one of them:
The power of thinking, that very power whereof
we are conscious is as necessary to the perception of
the slightest sensation as it is to geometrical reasoning.
There is no conceivable difference in the faculty or power:
the sole difference arises from the degree
in which it is or can be exerted.8
On 3 August 1771 Jefferson in a letter to Robert Skipwith
recommended a list of books and wrote to him,
I sat down with a design of executing your request to form
a catalogue of books to the amount of about 50 lib. sterl.
But could by no means satisfy myself
with any partial choice I could make.
Thinking therefore it might be as agreeable to you I have
framed such a general collection as I think you would
wish and might in time find convenient to procure.
Out of this you will choose for yourself to the amount
you mentioned for the present year and may hereafter
as shall be convenient proceed in completing the whole.
A view of the second column in this catalogue would
I suppose extort a smile from the face of gravity.
Peace to its wisdom!
Let me not awaken it.
A little attention however to the nature of the
human mind evinces that the entertainments
of fiction are useful as well as pleasant.
That they are pleasant when well written
every person feels who reads.
But wherein is its utility asks the reverend sage, big with the
notion that nothing can be useful but the learned lumber of
Greek and Roman reading with which his head is stored?
I answer, everything is useful which contributes
to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.
When any original act of charity or of gratitude, for instance,
is presented either to our sight or imagination, we are
deeply impressed with its beauty and feel a strong desire
in ourselves of doing charitable and grateful acts also.
On the contrary when we see or read of any atrocious deed,
we are disgusted with its deformity,
and conceive an abhorrence of vice.
Now every emotion of this kind is an exercise of our
virtuous dispositions, and dispositions of the mind,
like limbs of the body acquire strength by exercise.
But exercise produces habit, and in the instance of which
we speak the exercise being of the moral feelings
produces a habit of thinking and acting virtuously.
We never reflect whether the story
we read be truth or fiction.
If the painting be lively, and a tolerable picture of nature,
we are thrown into a reverie, from which
if we awaken it is the fault of the writer.
I appeal to every reader of feeling and sentiment whether
the fictitious murder of Duncan by Macbeth in Shakespeare
does not excite in him as great a horror of villainy, as the
real one of Henry IV by Ravaillac as related by Davila?
And whether the fidelity of Nelson and generosity of
Blandford in Marmontel do not dilate his breast
and elevate his sentiments as much as any
similar incident which real history can furnish?
Does he not in fact feel himself a better man while reading
them, and privately covenant to copy the fair example?
We neither know nor care whether Lawrence Sterne really
went to France, whether he was there accosted by the
Franciscan, at first rebuked him unkindly, and then gave
him a peace offering: or whether the whole be not fiction.
In either case we equally are sorrowful at the rebuke,
and secretly resolve we will never do so:
we are pleased with the subsequent atonement,
and view with emulation a soul candidly acknowledging
its fault and making a just reparation.
Considering history as a moral exercise, her lessons
would be too infrequent if confined to real life.
Of those recorded by historians few incidents have
been attended with such circumstances as to excite
in any high degree this sympathetic emotion of virtue.
We are therefore wisely framed to be as warmly
interested for a fictitious as for a real personage.
The field of imagination is thus laid open to our use,
and lessons may be formed to illustrate and carry
home to the heart every moral rule of life.
Thus a lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more
effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter
by reading King Lear than by all the dry volumes
of ethics and divinity that ever were written.
This is my idea of well written Romance,
of Tragedy, Comedy and Epic poetry.
If you are fond of speculation the books under
the head of Criticism will afford you much pleasure.
Of Politics and Trade I have given you a few only
of the best books, as you would probably choose
to be not unacquainted with those commercial principles
which bring wealth into our country, and the constitutional
security we have for the enjoyment of that wealth.
In Law I mention a few systematical books,
as a knowledge of the minutiae of that science
is not necessary for a private gentleman.
In Religion, History, Natural philosophy,
I have followed the same plan in general.
But whence the necessity of this collection?
Come to the new Rowanty from which you may reach
your hand to a library formed on a more extensive plan.
Separated from each other but a few paces the
possessions of each would be open to the other.
A spring centrically situated might be the scene
of every evening’s joy.
There we should talk over the lessons of the day,
or lose them in music, chess or the
merriments of our family companions.
The heart thus lightened our pillows would be soft,
and health and long life would attend the happy scene.
Come then and bring our dear Tibby with you,
the first in your affections, and second in mine.
Offer prayers for me too at that shrine to which
though absent I pray continual devotions.
In every scheme of happiness she is placed in the
foreground of the picture, as the principal figure.
Take that away, and it is no picture for me.
Bear my affections to Wintipock clothed
in the warmest expressions of sincerity;
and to yourself be every human felicity. Adieu.9
Here are some of his recommendations: Pope’s Iliad & Odyssey, Dryden’s Virgil,
Milton, Chaucer, plays by Shakespeare, Dryden, Addison, Otway, Terence,
Moliere, Farquhar, Vanbrugh, Steele and Congreve, novels by Rousseau, Smollet,
Richardson, Goldsmith and Swift, Johnson’s dictionary, Montesquieu, Locke,
Bolinbroke, Xenophon’s memoirs of Socrates, Hume, Blackstone’s Commentaries,
Livy, Sallust, Tacitus, Caesar, Josephus, Plutarch’s lives, Bayle’s Dictionary,
Robertson, Clarendon, Franklin on Electricity, and Voltaire.
Thomas Jefferson married Martha Wayles Skelton at her home on 1 January 1772.
She was a widow, and her two sons by her first marriage had died in 1767 and 1771.
She would have six children by Jefferson, and only two lived more than three years.
Virginia’s new Assembly began meeting in February 1772,
and the newly married Jefferson did not attend.
Martha’s father John Wayles died on 28 May 1773
and left her 11,000 acres and 135 slaves.
The couple sold half the land to pay off the debt that came with the inheritance.
Jefferson still had three plantations that kept him busy.
Jefferson in about 1773 wrote in this letter to Bernard Moore
that he sent to John Minor in August 1814:
Before you enter on the study of the law
a sufficient ground-work must be laid.
For this purpose an acquaintance with the
Latin and French languages is absolutely necessary.
The former you have; the latter must now be acquired.
Mathematics and Natural philosophy are so useful in the
most familiar occurrences of life, and are so peculiarly
engaging and delightful as would induce every person
to wish an acquaintance with them.
Besides this, the faculties of the mind, like the members
of the body, are strengthened and improved by exercise.
Mathematical reasonings and deductions are therefore
a fine preparation for investigating
the abstruse speculations of the law.
In these and the analogous branches of science
the following elementary books are recommended.
Mathematics. Bezout, Cours de Mathématiques—
the best for a student ever published;
Montucla or Bossut Histoire des Mathématiques.
Astronomy.—Ferguson, and Le Monnier, or de la Lande.
Geography.—Pinkerton.
Natural Philosophy.—Joyce’s Scientific dialogues;
Martin’s Philosophia Britannica, Mussenbroek’s Cours de Physique.
This foundation being laid, you may enter regularly
on the study of the Law, taking with it such of its kindred
sciences as will contribute to eminence in its attainment.
The principal of these are Physics, Ethics, Religion,
Natural Law, Belles Lettres, Criticism, Rhetoric and Oratory
The carrying on several studies at a time
is attended with advantage.
Variety relieves the mind as well as the eye,
palled with too long attention to a single object, but,
with both, transitions from one object to another may be
so frequent and transitory as to leave no impression.
The mean is therefore to be steered, and
a competent space of time allotted to each branch of study.
Again, a great inequality is observable in the vigor
of the mind at different periods of the day.
Its power at these periods should therefore
be attended to in marshalling the business of the day.
For these reasons I should recommend
the following distribution of your time:10
He went on to describe what books one should read
at different times from 8 in the morning to bedtime.
Jefferson was working hard as a lawyer.
According to his register of cases he was employed in 939 cases
from 12 February 1767 to 9 November 1774.
One of his account books indicated that he had 777 cases in 1771 and 1772
while the register of cases listed only 281 cases for those two years.
In March 1773 Jefferson and some radicals in Virginia drew up
some resolutions to protest the parliamentary proceedings that were
depriving the American citizens of their constitutional rights.
He wrote the resolution, and they established a committee of
correspondence and inquiry to gather intelligence regarding the
British Parliament and Ministers so that they could communicate with sister colonies.
His longtime friend and brother-in-law Dabney Carr on March 12
made his first speech on promoting that cooperation, and
the House in Virginia unanimously approved Jefferson’s resolution.
The British Governor Dunmore prorogued the Assembly,
and the eleven members of the new committee met at Raleigh’s Tavern.
Jefferson’s writings began to circulate among the colonies.
The British Parliament approved a new Tea Act in April.
Dabney Carr died in a snowstorm on May 4.
Jefferson was on the Propositions and Grievances Committee,
and on May 10 they revived the controversial fee bill.
Jefferson’s father-in-law John Wayles died on May 28.
His daughter Patty inherited 11,000 acres and had 135 slaves.
Jefferson sold some of the land to pay off Wayles’s debts.
Jefferson’s wife Martha Wayles inherited half the estate,
and that doubled the wealth of the Jefferson’s that added
135 slaves including Sally Hemings, the daughter of Wayles and the slave
Betty Hemings who was beautiful and had “long straight hair down her back.”
Jefferson sold 400 acres adjacent to his plantation to the
Italian immigrant Philip Mazzei who became a wine merchant.
The radical Samuel Adams in Boston organized a “tea party”
that threw 242 chests of tea into Boston’s bay on 16 December 1773.
Frederick North had become Prime Minister in January 1770,
and he wanted the Boston Port Acts enforced.
On 19 May 1774 the Virginia Gazette published
“An Epitome of the Boston Bill.”
Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee and young burgesses met secretly.
On May 24 they proposed, and the House of Burgesses approved
a “day of fasting, humiliation and prayer” on June 1.
They agreed to be of “one heart and one mind firmly to oppose
by all just and proper means every injury to American rights.”
The Virginia Gazette published their proclamation on May 26.
Dunmore dissolved the Assembly again.
The next day at least 100 Burgesses met in the Apollo Room of the Raleigh Tavern.
Radicals proposed protesting the Boston Port Bill and to stop trading with Britain.
Jefferson suggested shutting down the county courts,
and they asked counties to send delegates to a convention on August 1.
Boston radicals were calling for a general boycott of British trade.
Virginian merchants owed over £2.3 million to British merchants,
and Jefferson and Patrick Henry suggested
suspending payments on those debts in May.
On May 31 Jefferson wrote this short letter that was circulated:
Things seem to be hurrying to an alarming crisis
and demand the speedy, united counsel of all those
who have a regard for the common cause.11
Dunmore’s War was intended to distract colonials from their concerns
over taxes by instigating a war against Indians.
Yet the Shawnee Chief Cornstalk arranged a peace conference
by working with Quakers in Pennsylvania.
They sent messengers to John Connolly in Pittsburgh
to strengthen Virginia’s title to Kentucky.
Connolly’s men killed 13 Shawnees, and
they
retaliated by killing the same number of whites.
Sporadic fighting occurred, and on 10 June 1774 Governor Dunmore summoned
1,500 militia from southwest Virginia, and they set up headquarters at Pittsburgh.
Dunmore led about 2,000 militia down the Ohio River,
and 1,000 others led by Col. Andrew Lewis went down the Kanawha River.
Cornstalk had a coalition of 1,000 Shawnees, Miamis, Hurons, and Ottawas,
and they attacked the militia led by Lewis.
In the colonials’ largest battle so far the Virginia militia defeate
the Indians near Point Pleasant, Ohio on October 10.
The tribes defeated at the Kanawha asked for peace.
Jefferson in his Notes on the State of Virginia
wrote about the Indians and this war.
The principles of their society forbidding all compulsion,
they are to be led to duty and to enterprise
by personal influence and persuasion.
Hence eloquence in council, bravery and address in war,
become the foundations of all consequence with them.
To these acquirements all their faculties are directed.
Of their bravery and address in war we have
multiplied proofs because we have been the
subjects on which they were exercised.
Of their eminence in oratory we have fewer examples,
because it is displayed chiefly in their own councils.
Some, however, we have of very superior lustre.
I may challenge the whole orations of Demosthenes
and Cicero, and of any more eminent orator, if Europe
has furnished more eminent, to produce a single passage,
superior to the speech of Logan, a Mingo chief,
to Lord Dunmore, when governor of this state.
And as a testimony of their talents in this line,
I beg leave to introduce it, first 70 stating the
incidents necessary for understanding it.
In the spring of the year 1774, a robbery and murder
were committed on an inhabitant of the frontiers
of Virginia by two Indians of the Shawnee tribe.
The neighboring whites, according to their custom,
undertook to punish this outrage in a summary way.
Col. Cresap, a man infamous for the many murders he had
committed on those much-injured people, collected a party,
and proceeded down the Kanhaway in quest of vengeance.
Unfortunately a canoe of women and children with one man
only, was seen coming from the opposite shore, unarmed,
and unsuspecting an hostile attack from the whites.
Cresap and his party concealed themselves
on the bank of the river, and the moment the
canoe reached the shore, singled out their objects,
and at one fire killed every person in it.
This happened to be the family of Logan, who
had long been distinguished as a friend of the whites.
This unworthy return provoked his vengeance.
He accordingly signalized himself in the war which ensued.
In the autumn of the same year, a decisive battle was
fought at the mouth of the Great Kanhaway, between
the collected forces of the Shawnees, Mingoes, and
Delawares, and a detachment of the Virginia militia.
The Indians were defeated and sued for peace.
Logan however disdained to be seen among the suppliants.
But lest the sincerity of a treaty should be distrusted,
from which so distinguished a chief absented himself,
he sent by a messenger the following speech
to be delivered to Lord Dunmore.
“I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered
Logan’s cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if
ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not.
During the course of the last long and bloody war,
Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace.
Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen
pointed as they passed and said,
“Logan is the friend of white men.”
I had even thought to have lived with you
but for the injuries of one man.
Col. Cresap, the last spring in cold blood and unprovoked,
murdered all the relations of Logan,
not sparing even my women and children.
There runs not a drop of my blood
in the veins of any living creature.
This called on me for revenge.
I have sought it: I have killed many:
I have fully glutted my vengeance.
For my country I rejoice at the beams of peace.
But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear.
Logan never felt fear.
He will not turn on his heel to save his life.
Who is there to mourn for Logan?—Not one.12
St. Anne’s Day was celebrated on July 23, and Jefferson felt it was like
Virginians were experiencing a shock of electricity in their solid center.
On 1 August 1774 at the Virginia convention they approved the
resolution to stop all exports from the British Empire.
In this next portion of his Autobiography Jefferson
continues his account to 1774 and early 1775.
Nothing of particular excitement occurring for a
considerable time our countrymen seemed to fall
into a state of insensibility to our situation.
The duty on tea not yet repealed & the Declaratory act
of a right in the British Parliament to bind us by their laws
in all cases whatsoever, still suspended over us.
But a court of inquiry held in Rhode Island in 1762
with a power to send persons to England to be tried
for offences committed here was considered at
our session of the spring of 1773 as demanding attention.
Not thinking our old & leading members up to the point
of forwardness & zeal which the times required,
Mr. Henry, Richard H. Lee, Francis L. Lee, Mr. Carr & myself
agreed to meet in the evening in a private room of the Raleigh
to consult on the state of things.
There may have been a member or two more
whom I do not recollect.
We were all sensible that the most urgent of all measures
was that of coming to an understanding with all the other
colonies to consider the British claims as a common cause
to all, & to produce a unity of action: and for this purpose
that a committee of correspondence in each colony
would be the best instrument for intercommunication:
and that their first measure would probably be to propose
a meeting of deputies from every colony
at some central place, who should be charged with the
direction of the measures which should be taken by all.
We therefore drew up the resolutions
which may be seen in Wirt page 87.
The consulting members proposed to me to move them,
but I urged that it should be done by Mr. Carr, my friend
& brother in law, then a new member to whom I wished
an opportunity should be given of making known
to the house his great worth & talents.
It was so agreed; he moved them; they were agreed to
nem. con. and a committee of correspondence appointed
of whom Peyton Randolph, the Speaker, was chairman.
The Governor (then Lord Dunmore) dissolved us,
but the committee met the next day, prepared a
circular letter to the Speakers of the other colonies,
enclosing to each a copy of the resolutions and left it in
charge with their chairman to forward them by expresses.
The origination of these committees of correspondence
between the colonies has been since claimed for Massachusetts,
and Marshall II. 151, has given into this error,
although the very note of his appendix to which he refers,
shows that their establishment was confined to their own towns.
This matter will be seen clearly stated in a letter
of Samuel Adams Wells to me of April 2, 1819,
and my answer of May 12.
I was corrected by the letter of Mr. Wells in the information
I had given Mr. Wirt, as stated in his note, page 87, that
the messengers of Massachusetts & Virginia crossed
each other on the way bearing similar propositions,
for Mr. Wells shows that Massachusetts did not adopt
the measure but on the receipt of our proposition
delivered at their next session.
Their message therefore which passed ours, must have
related to something else, for I well remember Peyton
Randolph’s informing me of the crossing of our messengers.
The next event which excited our sympathies
for Massachusetts was the Boston port bill by which
that port was to be shut up on the 1st of June, 1774.
This arrived while we were in session
in the spring of that year.
The lead in the house on these subjects being no longer
left to the old members, Mr. Henry, Richard Henry Lee,
Francis Lightfoot Lee, 3 or 4 other members,
whom I do not recollect, and myself, agreeing that
we must boldly take an unequivocal stand in the line
with Massachusetts, determined to meet and consult
on the proper measures in the council chamber,
for the benefit of the library in that room.
We were under conviction of the necessity of arousing
our people from the lethargy into which they had fallen
as to passing events; and thought that the appointment
of a day of general fasting & prayer would be
most likely to call up & alarm their attention.
No example of such a solemnity had existed
since the days of our distresses in the war of 55
since which a new generation had grown up.
With the help therefore of Rushworth, whom
we rummaged over for the revolutionary precedents &
forms of the Puritans of that day, preserved by him,
we cooked up a resolution, somewhat modernizing
their phrases, for appointing the 1st day of June, on which
the Port bill was to commence, for a day of fasting,
humiliation & prayer, to implore heaven to avert from us
the evils of civil war, to inspire us with firmness
in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts
of the King & parliament to moderation & justice.
To give greater emphasis to our proposition,
we agreed to wait the next morning on Mr. Nicholas,
whose grave & religious character was more in unison
with the tone of our resolution and to solicit him to move it.
We accordingly went to him in the morning.
He moved it the same day; the 1st of June
was proposed, and it passed without opposition.
The Governor dissolved us as usual.
We retired to the Apollo as before, agreed to an association,
and instructed the committee of correspondence to propose
to the corresponding committees of the other colonies
to appoint deputies to meet in Congress at such place,
annually, as should be convenient to direct from
time to time the measures required by the general interest:
and we declared that an attack on any one colony
should be considered as an attack on the whole.
This was in May.
We further recommended to the several counties
to elect deputies to meet at Williamsburg the 1st of August
ensuing to consider the state of the colony & particularly
to appoint delegates to a general Congress,
should that measure be acceded to
by the committees of correspondence generally.
It was acceded to; Philadelphia was appointed for the place,
and the 5th of September for the time of meeting.
We returned home and in our several counties invited
the clergy to meet assemblies of the people on the
1st of June to perform the ceremonies of the day and
to address to them discourses suited to the occasion.
The people met generally with anxiety and alarm
in their countenances, and the effect of the day through
the whole colony was like a shock of electricity arousing
every man and placing him erect and solidly on his center.
They chose universally delegates for the convention.
Being elected one for my own county I prepared
a draught of instructions to be given to the delegates
whom we should send to the Congress,
and which I meant to propose at our meeting.
In this I took the ground which from the beginning
I had thought the only one orthodox or tenable,
which was that the relation between Great Britain and these
colonies was exactly the same as that of England & Scotland
after the accession of James & until the Union,
and the same as her present relations with Hanover,
having the same Executive chief but no other necessary
political connection; and that our emigration from England
to this country gave her no more rights over us
than the emigrations of the Danes and Saxons gave to the
present authorities of the mother country over England.
In this doctrine however I had never been able
to get any one to agree with me but Mr. Wythe.
He concurred in it from the first dawn of the question.
What was the political relation between us & England?
Our other patriots Randolph, the Lees, Nicholas, Pendleton
stopped at the half-way house of John Dickinson who
admitted that England had a right to regulate our commerce
and to lay duties on it for the purposes of regulation
but not of raising revenue.
But for this ground there was no foundation in compact,
in any acknowledged principles of colonization,
nor in reason: expatriation being a natural right,
and acted on as such, by all nations, in all ages.
I set out for Williamsburg some days before that
appointed for our meeting, but was taken ill
of a dysentery on the road & unable to proceed.
I sent on therefore to Williamsburg two copies
of my draught, the one under cover to Peyton Randolph,
who I knew would be in the chair of the convention,
the other to Patrick Henry.
Whether Mr. Henry disapproved the ground taken
or was too lazy to read it
(for he was the laziest man in reading I ever knew)
I never learned: but he communicated it to nobody.
Peyton Randolph informed the convention he had received
such a paper from a member prevented by sickness from
offering it in his place, and he laid it on the table for perusal.
It was read generally by the members, approved by many,
but thought too bold for the present state of things;
but they printed it in pamphlet form under the title of
“A Summary View of the Rights of British America.”
It found its way to England, was taken up by the opposition,
interpolated a little by Mr. Burke so as to make it answer
opposition purposes, and in that form
ran rapidly through several editions.
This information I had from Parson Hurt, who happened
at the time to be in London,
where he had gone to receive clerical orders.
And I was informed afterwards by Peyton Randolph that
it had procured me the honor of having my name inserted
in a long list of proscriptions enrolled in a bill of attainder
commenced in one of the houses of parliament,
but suppressed in embryo by the hasty step of events
which warned them to be a little cautious.
Montague, agent of the House of Burgesses in England,
made extracts from the bill, copied the names,
and sent them to Peyton Randolph.
The names, I think, were about 20 which he repeated to
me, but I recollect those only of Hancock, the two Adamses,
Peyton Randolph himself, Patrick Henry, & myself.
The convention met on the 1st of August,
renewed their association, appointed delegates
to the Congress, gave them instructions very temperately
& properly expressed, both as to style & matter;
and they repaired to Philadelphia at the time appointed.
The splendid proceedings of that Congress at their 1st
session belong to general history, are known to everyone,
and need not therefore be noted here.
They terminated their session on the 26th of October,
to meet again on the 10th May ensuing.
The convention at their ensuing session of March ’75,
approved of the proceedings of Congress, thanked their
delegates and reappointed the same persons to represent
the colony at the meeting to be held in May:
and foreseeing the probability that Peyton Randolph
their president and Speaker also of the House of Burgesses
might be called off, they added me,
in that event to the delegation.13
Jefferson was concerned about the increasing violation
of rights since George III became King in 1760.
On 22 June 1774 George III approved the Quebec Act that claimed
territory which had been part of the Indian Reserve and would later
become states from Ohio to part of Minnesota.
That year Jefferson wrote,
Scarcely have our minds been able to emerge from the
astonishment into which one stroke of parliamentary thunder
had involved us, before another more heavy,
and more alarming, is fallen on us.
Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental
opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun
at a distinguished period, and pursued, unalterably
through every change of ministers, too plainly a
deliberate and systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.14
Also in 1774 Jefferson wrote, “The God who gave us life gave us liberty
at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.”15
On July 26 Jefferson met with freeholders of Albemarle County,
and he and John Walker were elected as representatives to the House of Burgesses.
At that time Jefferson wrote these brief instructions:
“Resolved, That the inhabitants of the several States
of British America are subject to the laws
which they adopted at their first settlement,
and to such others as have been since
made by their respective Legislatures,
duly constituted and appointed with their own consent.
That no other Legislature whatever can rightly exercise
authority over them; and that these privileges they hold
as the common rights of mankind confirmed by the
political constitutions they have respectively assumed,
and also by several charters of compact from the Crown.
“Resolved, That these natural and legal rights have
in frequent instances been invaded by the Parliament
of Great Britain, and particularly that they were so by an act
lately passed to take away the trade of the inhabitants of
the town of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay;
that all such assumptions of unlawful power are dangerous
to the rights of the British empire in general,
and should be considered as its common cause,
and that we will ever be ready to join with our fellow
subjects in every part of the same, in executing all those
rightful powers which God has given us for the
establishment and guaranteeing such their constitutional
rights, when, where, and by whomsoever invaded.”16
Jefferson in August 1774 had had enough of the British legal system,
and he sacrificed two-thirds of the £1,400 owed him by clients to end his law practice.
He turned over the remaining 132 active cases to his young cousin Edmund Randolph.
Jefferson then wrote much longer instructions for the Virginia delegates to
the First Continental Congress, and later they were published in Philadelphia
and England as A Summary View of the Rights of British America.
This is the entire text:
Resolved, that it be an instruction to the said deputies,
when assembled in general congress with the deputies
from the other states of British America, to propose
to the said congress that an humble and dutiful address
be presented to his majesty, begging leave to lay
before him, as chief magistrate of the British empire,
the united complaints of his majesty’s subjects in America;
complaints which are excited by many unwarrantable
encroachments and usurpations, attempted to be made
by the legislature of one part of the empire,
upon those rights which God and the laws
have given equally and independently to all.
To represent to his majesty that these his states have often
individually made humble application to his imperial throne
to obtain, through its intervention, some redress of their
injured rights, to none of which was ever even an answer
condescended; humbly to hope that this their joint address,
penned in the language of truth, and divested of those
expressions of servility which would persuade his majesty
that we are asking favors, and not rights, shall obtain
from his majesty a more respectful acceptance.
And this his majesty will think we have reason to expect
when he reflects that he is no more than the chief officer
of the people, appointed by the laws, and circumscribed
with definite powers to assist in working the
great machine of government, erected for their use,
and consequently subject to their superintendence.
And in order that these our rights, as well as
the invasions of them, may be laid more fully
before his majesty, to take a view of them
from the origin and first settlement of these countries.
To remind him that our ancestors, before their
Emigration to America, were the free inhabitants of the
British dominions in Europe, and possessed a right which
nature has given to all men, of departing from the country
in which chance, not choice, has placed them,
of going in quest of new habitations, and of there
establishing new societies, under such laws and
regulations as to them shall seem most likely
to promote public happiness.
That their Saxon ancestors had, under this universal law,
in like manner left their native wilds and woods
in the north of Europe, had possessed themselves of
the island of Britain, then less charged with inhabitants,
and had established there that system of laws which
has so long been the glory and protection of that country.
Nor was ever any claim of superiority or dependence
asserted over them by that mother country from which
they had migrated; and were such a claim made,
it is believed that his majesty’s subjects in Great Britain
have too firm a feeling of the rights derived to them
from their ancestors, to bow down the sovereignty
of their state before such visionary pretensions.
And it is thought that no circumstance has occurred to
distinguish materially the British from the Saxon emigration.
America was conquered, and her settlements made,
and firmly established, at the expense of individuals,
and not of the British public.
Their own blood was spilt in acquiring lands for their
settlement, their own fortunes expended in making
that settlement effectual; for themselves they fought,
for themselves they conquered,
and for themselves alone they have right to hold.
Not a shilling was ever issued from the public treasures
of his majesty, or his ancestors, for their assistance,
till of very late times, after the colonies had become
established on a firm and permanent footing.
That then, indeed, having become valuable to Great Britain
for her commercial purposes, his parliament was pleased
to lend them assistance against an enemy,
who would fain have drawn to herself the benefits
of their commerce, to the great aggrandizement of herself,
and danger of Great Britain.
Such assistance, and in such circumstances, they had often
before given to Portugal, and other allied states,
with whom they carry on a commercial intercourse;
yet these states never supposed, that by calling in her aid,
they thereby submitted themselves to her sovereignty.
Had such terms been proposed, they would have
rejected them with disdain, and trusted
for better to the moderation of their enemies,
or to a vigorous exertion of their own force.
We do not, however, mean to under-rate those aids,
which to us were doubtless valuable,
on whatever principles granted; but we would show
that they cannot give a title to that authority which
the British parliament would arrogate over us,
and that they may amply be repaid by our giving
to the inhabitants of Great Britain such exclusive privileges
in trade as may be advantageous to them,
and at the same time not too restrictive to ourselves.
That settlements having been thus effected in the wilds
of America, the emigrants thought proper to adopt
that system of laws under which they had hitherto lived
in the mother country, and to continue their union with her
by submitting themselves to the same common sovereign,
who was thereby made the central link connecting
the several parts of the empire thus newly multiplied.
But that not long were they permitted, however far they
thought themselves removed from the hand of oppression,
to hold undisturbed the rights thus acquired,
at the hazard of their lives and loss of their fortunes.
A family of princes was then on the British throne,
whose treasonable crimes against their people brought
on them afterwards the exertion of those sacred and
sovereign rights of punishment reserved in the hands
of the people for cases of extreme necessity,
and judged by the constitution unsafe
to be delegated to any other judicature.
While every day brought forth some new and unjustifiable
exertion of power over their subjects on that side the water,
it was not to be expected that those here, much less able
at that time to oppose the designs of despotism,
should be exempted from injury.
Accordingly that country, which had been acquired
by the lives, the labors, and the fortunes, of individual
adventurers, was by these princes, at several times,
parted out and distributed among the favorites and
followers of their fortunes, and, by an assumed right
of the crown alone, were erected into distinct
and independent governments; a measure which it is
believed his majesty’s prudence and understanding
would prevent him from imitating at this day,
as no exercise of such a power, of dividing and
dismembering a country, has ever occurred
in his majesty’s realm of England, though now of very
ancient standing; nor could it be justified or acquiesced
under there, or in any other part of his majesty’s empire.
That the exercise of a free trade with all parts
of the world, possessed by the American colonists,
as of natural right, and which no law of their own
had taken away or abridged,
was next the object of unjust encroachment.
Some of the colonies having thought proper to continue
the administration of their government in the name and
under the authority of his majesty king Charles the first,
whom, notwithstanding his late deposition
by the commonwealth of England, they continued
in the sovereignty of their state; the parliament for the
commonwealth took the same in high offence, and assumed
upon themselves the power of prohibiting their trade with all
other parts of the world, except the island of Great Britain.
This arbitrary act, however, they soon recalled, and by
solemn treaty, entered into on the 12th day of March, 1651,
between the said commonwealth by their commissioners,
and the colony of Virginia by their house of burgesses,
it was expressly stipulated, by the 8th article of the said treaty,
that they should have “free trade as the people
of England do enjoy to all places and with all nations,
according to the laws of that commonwealth.”
But that, upon the restoration of his majesty
king Charles the second, their rights of free commerce
fell once more a victim to arbitrary power;
and by several acts of his reign, as well as of some of
his successors, the trade of the colonies was laid
under such restrictions, as show what hopes they might
form from the justice of a British parliament,
were its uncontrolled power admitted over these states.
History has informed us that bodies of men, as well as
individuals, are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny.
A view of these acts of parliament for regulation,
as it has been affectedly called, of the American trade,
if all other evidence were removed out of the case,
would undeniably evince the truth of this observation.
Besides the duties they impose on our articles of export
and import, they prohibit our going to any markets
northward of Cape Finesterre, in the kingdom of Spain,
for the sale of commodities which Great Britain
will not take from us, and for the purchase of others,
with which she cannot supply us, and that for no other
than the arbitrary purposes of purchasing for themselves,
by a sacrifice of our rights and interests, certain privileges
in their commerce with an allied state, who in confidence
that their exclusive trade with America will be continued,
while the principles and power of the British parliament
be the same, have indulged themselves in every
exorbitance which their avarice could dictate,
or our necessities extort; have raised their commodities,
called for in America, to the double and treble of what they
sold for before such exclusive privileges were given them,
and of what better commodities of the same kind
would cost us elsewhere, and at the same time
give us much less for what we carry thither
than might be had at more convenient ports.
That these acts prohibit us from carrying in quest of other
purchasers the surplus of our tobacco remaining
after the consumption of Great Britain is supplied;
so that we must leave them with the British merchant
for whatever he will please to allow us, to be by him
reshipped to foreign markets, where he will reap
the benefits of making sale of them for full value.
That to heighten still the idea of parliamentary justice,
and to show with what moderation they are like
to exercise power, where themselves are to feel no part
of its weight, we take leave to mention to his majesty
certain other acts of British parliament, by which
they would prohibit us from manufacturing for our own use
the articles we raise on our own lands with our own labor.
By an act passed in the 5th Year of the reign of
his late majesty king George the second,
an American subject is forbidden to make a hat for himself
of the fur which he has taken perhaps on his own soil;
an instance of despotism to which no parallel can be
produced in the most arbitrary ages of British history.
By one other act, passed in the 23d year of the same reign,
the iron which we make we are forbidden to manufacture,
and heavy as that article is, and necessary in every branch
of husbandry, besides commission and insurance,
we are to pay freight for it to Great Britain,
and freight for it back again, for the purpose of supporting
not men, but machines, in the island of Great Britain.
In the same spirit of equal and impartial legislation is to be
viewed the act of parliament, passed in the 5th year
of the same reign, by which American lands are
made subject to the demands of British creditors,
while their own lands were still continued unanswerable
for their debts; from which one of these conclusions
must necessarily follow, either that justice is not the same
in America as in Britain, or else that the British parliament
pay less regard to it here than there.
But that we do not point out to his majesty the injustice
of these acts with intent to rest on that principle
the cause of their nullity; but to show that experience
confirms the propriety of those political principles which
exempt us from the jurisdiction of the British parliament.
The true ground on which we declare these acts void is,
that the British parliament has no right
to exercise authority over us.
That these exercises of usurped power have not been
confined to instances alone, in which themselves
were interested, but they have also intermeddled
with the regulation of the internal affairs of the colonies.
The act of the 9th of Anne for establishing a post office
in America seems to have had little connection
with British convenience, except that of accommodating
his majesty’s ministers and favorites
with the sale of a lucrative and easy office.
That thus have we hastened through the reigns which
preceded his majesty’s, during which the violations
of our right were less alarming, because repeated
at more distant intervals than that rapid and bold
succession of injuries which is likely to distinguish
the present from all other periods of American story.
Scarcely have our minds been able to emerge
from the astonishment into which one stroke of
parliamentary thunder has involved us, before another
more heavy, and more alarming, is fallen on us.
Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental
opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions,
begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably
through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a
deliberate and systematical plan of reducing us to slavery.
That the act passed in the 4th year of his majesty’s reign,
entitled “An act for granting certain duties in
the British colonies and plantations in America, &c.”
One other act passed in the 5th year of his reign entitled
“An act for granting and applying certain stamp duties
and other duties in the British colonies
and plantations in America, &c.”
One other act passed in the 6th year of his reign, entitled
“An act for the better securing the dependency of his
Majesty’s dominions in America upon the crown and
parliament of Great Britain;” and one other act,
passed in the 7th year of his reign, entitled
“An act for granting duties on paper, tea, &c.”
form that connected chain of parliamentary usurpation,
which has already been the subject of frequent applications
to his majesty, and the houses of lords and commons of
Great Britain; and no answers having yet been
condescended to any of these, we shall not trouble
his majesty with a repetition of the matters they contained.
But that one other act, passed in the same 7th year
of the reign, having been a peculiar attempt,
must ever require peculiar mention; it is entitled
“An act for suspending the legislature of New York.”
One free and independent legislature hereby takes
upon itself to suspend the powers of another,
free and independent as itself; thus exhibiting
a phenomenon unknown in nature,
the creator and creature of its own power.
Not only the principles of common sense, but the common
feelings of human nature, must be surrendered up
before his majesty’s subjects here can be persuaded
to believe that they hold their political existence
at the will of a British parliament.
Shall these governments be dissolved, their property annihilated,
and their people reduced to a state of nature
at the imperious breath of a body of men,
whom they never saw, in whom they never confided,
and over whom they have no powers of punishment
or removal, let their crimes against
the American public be ever so great?
Can any one reason be assigned why 160,000 electors
in the island of Great Britain should give law to four millions
in the states of America, every individual of whom
is equal to every individual of them, in virtue,
in understanding, and in bodily strength?
Were this to be admitted, instead of being a free people,
as we have hitherto supposed, and mean to continue
ourselves, we should suddenly be found the slaves,
not of one, but of 160,000 tyrants, distinguished too
from all others by this singular circumstance,
that they are removed from the reach of fear, the only
restraining motive which may hold the hand of a tyrant.
That by “an act to discontinue in such manner
and for such time as are therein mentioned the landing
and discharging, lading or shipping, of goods, wares, and
merchandize, at the town and within the harbor of Boston,
in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America,”
which was passed at the last session of British parliament;
a large and populous town, whose trade was
their sole subsistence, was deprived of that trade,
and involved in utter ruin.
Let us for a while suppose the question of right suspended,
in order to examine this act on principles of justice:
An act of parliament had been passed imposing duties
on teas, to be paid in America, against which act
the Americans had protested as unauthoritative.
The East India company, who till that time had never sent
a pound of tea to America on their own account,
step forth on that occasion the assertors of
parliamentary right, and send hither
many ship loads of that obnoxious commodity.
The masters of their several vessels, however,
on their arrival in America, wisely attended to admonition,
and returned with their cargoes.
In the province of New England alone the remonstrances
of the people were disregarded, and a compliance,
after being many days waited for, was flatly refused.
Whether in this the master of the vessel was governed by
his obstinance, or his instructions, let those who know, say.
There are extraordinary situations which require
extraordinary interposition.
An exasperated people, who feel that they possess power,
are not easily restrained within limits strictly regular.
A number of them assembled in the town of Boston,
threw the tea into the ocean, and dispersed
without doing any other act of violence.
If in this they did wrong, they were known and were
amenable to the laws of the land, against which it could not
be objected that they had ever, in any instance,
been obstructed or diverted from their regular course
in favor of popular offenders.
They should therefore not have been
distrusted on this occasion.
But that ill-fated colony had formerly been bold in their
enmities against the house of Stuart, and were now
devoted to ruin by that unseen hand which governs
the momentous affairs of this great empire.
On the partial representations of a few worthless ministerial
dependents, whose constant office it has been to keep that
government embroiled, and who, by their treacheries,
hope to obtain the dignity of the British knighthood,
without calling for a party accused, without asking a proof,
without attempting a distinction between the guilty
and the innocent, the whole of that ancient and wealthy
town is in a moment reduced from opulence to beggary.
Men who had spent their lives in extending
the British commerce, who had invested in that place
the wealth their honest endeavors had merited,
found themselves and their families thrown at once
on the world for subsistence by its charities.
Not the hundredth part of the inhabitants of that town
had been concerned in the act complained of;
many of them were in Great Britain and in other parts
beyond sea; yet all were involved in one indiscriminate ruin,
by a new executive power, unheard of till then,
that of a British parliament.
A property, of the value of many millions of money,
was sacrificed to revenge, not repay,
the loss of a few thousands.
This is administering justice with a heavy hand indeed!
and when is this tempest to be arrested in its course?
Two wharfs are to be opened again
when his majesty shall think proper.
The residue which lined the extensive shores of the bay of
Boston are forever interdicted the exercise of commerce.
This little exception seems to have been thrown in
for no other purpose than that of setting a precedent
for investing his majesty with legislative powers.
If the pulse of his people shall beat calmly
under this experiment, another and another will be tried,
till the measure of despotism be filled up.
It would be an insult on common sense to pretend that
this exception was made in order to restore
its commerce to that great town.
The trade which cannot be received at two wharfs alone
must of necessity be transferred to some other place;
to which it will soon be followed by that of the two wharfs.
Considered in this light, it would be an insolent and cruel
mockery at the annihilation of the town of Boston.
By the act for the suppression of riots and tumults
in the town of Boston, passed also in the last session
of parliament, a murder committed there is,
if the governor pleases, to be tried in the court of King’s
Bench, in the island of Great Britain, by a jury of Middlesex.
The witnesses, too, on receipt of such a sum as the
governor shall think it reasonable for them to expend,
are to enter into recognizance to appear at the trial.
This is, in other words, taxing them to the amount
of their recognizance, and that amount may be
whatever a governor pleases; for who does
his majesty think can be prevailed on to cross the Atlantic
for the sole purpose of bearing evidence to a fact?
His expenses are to be borne, indeed, as they shall be
estimated by a governor; but who are to feed
the wife and children whom he leaves behind,
and who have had no other subsistence but his daily labor?
Those epidemical disorders, too, so terrible
in a foreign climate, is the cure of them to be estimated
among the articles of expense, and their danger to be
warded off by the almighty power of parliament?
And the wretched criminal, if he happen to have offended
on the American side, stripped of his privilege of trial
by peers of his vicinage, removed from the place where
alone full evidence could be obtained, without money,
without counsel, without friends, without exculpatory proof,
is tried before judges predetermined to condemn.
The cowards who would suffer a countryman to be torn
from the bowels of their society, in order to be thus offered
a sacrifice to parliamentary tyranny, would merit that
everlasting infamy now fixed on the authors of the act!
A clause for a similar purpose had been introduced
into an act, passed in the 12th year of his majesty’s reign,
entitled “An act for the better securing and preserving
his majesty’s dockyards, magazines, ships, ammunition,
and stores;” against which, as meriting the same censures,
the several colonies have already protested.
That these are the acts of power, assumed by a body
of men, foreign to our constitutions, and unacknowledged
by our laws, against which we do, on behalf of the
inhabitants of British America, enter this our solemn and
determined protest; and we do earnestly entreat his
majesty, as yet the only mediatory power between the
several states of the British empire, to recommend to his
parliament of Great Britain the total revocation of these
acts, which, however nugatory they be, may yet prove
the cause of further discontents and jealousies among us.
That we next proceed to consider the conduct of
his majesty, as holding the executive powers of the laws
of these states, and mark out his deviations from the line
of duty: By the constitution of Great Britain, as well as
of the several American states, his majesty possesses the
power of refusing to pass into a law any bill which has
already passed the other two branches of legislature.
His majesty, however, and his ancestors, conscious of
the impropriety of opposing their single opinion to the
united wisdom of two houses of parliament,
while their proceedings were unbiassed by
interested principles, for several ages past
have modestly declined the exercise of this power
in that part of his empire called Great Britain.
But by change of circumstances, other principles
than those of justice simply have obtained an influence
on their determinations; the addition of new states
to the British empire has produced an addition of new,
and sometimes opposite interests.
It is now, therefore, the great office of his majesty,
to resume the exercise of his negative power,
and to prevent the passage of laws by any one legislature
of the empire, which might bear injuriously
on the rights and interests of another.
Yet this will not excuse the wanton exercise of this power
which we have seen his majesty practice
on the laws of the American legislatures.
For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no
conceivable reason at all, his majesty
has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency.
The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object
of desire in those colonies, where it was
unhappily introduced in their infant state.
But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have,
it is necessary to exclude all further importations
from Africa; yet our repeated attempts to effect this
by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which
might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto
defeated by his majesty’s negative:
Thus preferring the immediate advantages of
a few African corsairs to the lasting interests of the
American states, and to the rights of human nature,
deeply wounded by this infamous practice.
Nay, the single interposition of an interested individual
against a law was scarcely ever known to fail of success,
though in the opposite scale were placed
the interests of a whole country.
That this is so shameful an abuse of a power
trusted with his majesty for other purposes,
as if not reformed, would call for some legal restrictions.
With equal inattention to the necessities of his people
here has his majesty permitted our laws to lie neglected
in England for years, neither confirming them by his assent,
nor annulling them by his negative; so that such of them
as have no suspending clause we hold on the most
precarious of all tenures, his majesty’s will,
and such of them as suspend themselves
till his majesty’s assent be obtained, we have feared, might
be called into existence at some future and distant period,
when time, and change of circumstances,
shall have rendered them destructive to his people here.
And to render this grievance still more oppressive,
his majesty by his instructions has laid his governors under
such restrictions that they can pass no law of any moment
unless it have such suspending clause; so that, however
immediate may be the call for legislative interposition, the
law cannot be executed till it has twice crossed the Atlantic,
by which time the evil may have spent its whole force.
But in what terms, reconcilable to majesty,
and at the same time to truth, shall we speak of a late
instruction to his majesty’s governor of the colony
of Virginia, by which he is forbidden to assent to any law
for the division of a county, unless the new county
will consent to have no representative in assembly?
That colony has as yet fixed no boundary to the westward.
Their western counties, therefore, are of indefinite extent;
some of them are actually seated many hundred miles
from their eastern limits.
Is it possible, then, that his majesty can have bestowed
a single thought on the situation of those people,
who, in order to obtain justice for injuries,
however great or small, must, by the laws of that colony,
attend their county court, at such a distance, with all their
witnesses, monthly, till their litigation be determined?
Or does his majesty seriously wish, and publish it to the world,
that his subjects should give up the glorious right
of representation, with all the benefits derived from that,
and submit themselves the absolute slaves of his sovereign will?
Or is it rather meant to confine the legislative body to their
present numbers, that they may be the cheaper bargain
whenever they shall become worth a purchase.
One of the articles of impeachment against Tresilian,
and the other judges of Westminister Hall, in the reign
of Richard the second, for which they suffered death,
as traitors to their country, was, that they had advised
the king that he might dissolve his parliament at any time;
and succeeding kings have adopted
the opinion of these unjust judges.
Since the establishment, however, of the British constitution,
at the glorious revolution, on its free and ancient principles,
neither his majesty, nor his ancestors, have exercised
such a power of dissolution in the island of Great Britain;
and when his majesty was petitioned by the united voice
of his people there to dissolve the present parliament,
who had become obnoxious to them, his ministers
were heard to declare, in open parliament, that
his majesty possessed no such power by the constitution.
But how different their language and his practice here!
To declare as their duty required the known rights
of their country to oppose the usurpations of
every foreign judicature, to disregard the imperious
mandates of a minister or governor, have been the avowed
causes of dissolving houses of representatives in America.
But if such powers be really vested in his majesty,
can he suppose they are there placed to awe
the members from such purposes as these?
When the representative body have lost the confidence
of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale
of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed
to themselves powers which the people never
put into their hands, then indeed their continuing
in office becomes dangerous to the state,
and calls for an exercise of the power of dissolution.
Such being the causes for which the representative body
should, and should not, be dissolved, will it not appear
strange to an unbiassed observer, that that of Great Britain
was not dissolved, while those of the colonies
have repeatedly incurred that sentence?
But your majesty or your governors
have carried this power beyond every limit known,
or provided for, by the laws:
After dissolving one house of representatives
they have refused to call another, so that,
for a great length of time, the legislature provided
by the laws has been out of existence.
From the nature of things, every society must at all times
possess within itself the sovereign powers of legislation.
The feelings of human nature revolt against the supposition
of a state so situated as that it may not in any emergency
provide against dangers which
perhaps threaten immediate ruin.
While those bodies are in existence to whom the people
have delegated the powers of legislation,
they alone possess and may exercise those powers;
but when they are dissolved by the lopping off
one or more of their branches, the power reverts
to the people, who may exercise it to unlimited extent,
either assembling together in person, sending deputies,
or in any other way they may think proper.
We forbear to trace consequences further; the dangers
are conspicuous with which this practice is replete.
That we shall at this time also take notice of an error
in the nature of our land holdings, which crept in
at a very early period of our settlement.
The introduction of the feudal tenures into the kingdom
of England, though ancient, is well enough understood
to set this matter in a proper light.
In the earlier ages of the Saxon settlement feudal holdings
were certainly altogether unknown; and very few, if any,
had been introduced at the time of the Norman conquest.
Our Saxon ancestors held their lands, as they did their
personal property, in absolute dominion, disencumbered
with any superior, answering nearly to the nature
of those possessions which the feudalists term allodial.
William, the Norman, first introduced that system generally.
The lands which had belonged to those who fell
in the battle of Hastings, and in the subsequent
insurrections of his reign, formed a considerable
proportion of the lands of the whole kingdom.
These he granted out, subject to feudal duties,
as did he also those of a great number of his new subjects,
who, by persuasions or threats,
were induced to surrender them for that purpose.
But still much was left in the hands of his Saxon subjects;
held of no superior, and not subject to feudal conditions.
These, therefore, by express laws, enacted to render
uniform the system of military defense, were made liable
to the same military duties as if they had been feuds;
and the Norman lawyers soon found means
to saddle them also with all the other feudal burthens.
But still they had not been surrendered to the king,
they were not derived from his grant,
and therefore they were not held of him.
A general principle, indeed, was introduced, that
“all lands in England were held either mediately or
immediately of the crown,” but this was borrowed
from those holdings, which were truly feudal,
and only applied to others for the purposes of illustration.
Feudal holdings were therefore but exceptions
out of the Saxon laws of possession,
under which all lands were held in absolute right.
These, therefore, still form the basis, or ground-work,
of the common law, to prevail wheresoever
the exceptions have not taken place.
America was not conquered by William the Norman,
nor its lands surrendered to him or any of his successors.
Possessions there are undoubtedly of the allodial nature.
Our ancestors, however, who migrated hither,
were farmers, not lawyers.
The fictitious principle that all lands belong originally
to the king, they were early persuaded to believe real; and
accordingly took grants of their own lands from the crown.
And while the crown continued to grant for small sums and
on reasonable rents; there was no inducement
to arrest the error, and lay it open to public view.
But his majesty has lately taken on him to advance
the terms of purchase, and of holding to the double
of what they were; by which means the
acquisition of lands being rendered difficult,
the population of our country is likely to be checked.
It is time, therefore, for us to lay this matter
before his majesty, and to declare that
he has no right to grant lands of himself.
From the nature and purpose of civil institutions,
all the lands within the limits which any particular society
has circumscribed around itself are assumed
by that society and subject to their allotment only.
This may be done by themselves, assembled collectively,
or by their legislature, to whom they may have delegated
sovereign authority; and if they are allotted in neither
of these ways, each individual of the society may
appropriate to himself such lands as he finds vacant,
and occupancy will give him title.
That in order to enforce the arbitrary measures before
complained of, his majesty has from time to time sent
among us large bodies of armed forces, not made up of the
people here, nor raised by the authority of our laws:
Did his majesty possess such a right as this,
it might swallow up all our other rights
whenever he should think proper.
But his majesty has no right to land a single armed man
on our shores, and those whom he sends here are liable
to our laws made for the suppression and punishment
of riots, routs, and unlawful assemblies;
or are hostile bodies, invading us in defiance of law.
When in the course of the late war, it became expedient
that a body of Hanoverian troops should be brought over
for the defense of Great Britain, his majesty’s grandfather,
our late sovereign, did not pretend to introduce them
under any authority he possessed.
Such a measure would have given just alarm to his subjects
in Great Britain, whose liberties would not be safe
if armed men of another country, and of another spirit,
might be brought into the realm at any time
without the consent of their legislature.
He therefore applied to parliament, who passed
an act for that purpose, limiting the number
to be brought in and the time they were to continue.
In like manner is his majesty restrained
in every part of the empire.
He possesses, indeed, the executive power of the laws
in every state; but they are the laws of the particular state
which he is to administer within that state,
and not those of any one within the limits of another.
Every state must judge for itself the number of armed men
which they may safely trust among them, of whom they are
to consist, and under what restrictions they shall be laid.
To render these proceedings still more criminal
against our laws, instead of subjecting the military
to the civil powers, his majesty has expressly
made the civil subordinate to the military.
But can his majesty thus put down all law under his feet?
Can he erect a power superior
to that which erected himself?
He has done it indeed by force; but let him
remember that force cannot give right.
That these are our grievances which we have thus laid
before his majesty, with that freedom of language
and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming
their rights, as derived from the laws of nature,
and not as the gift of their chief magistrate:
Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art.
To give praise which is not due might be well
from the venal, but would ill beseem those
who are asserting the rights of human nature.
They know, and will therefore say, that kings
are the servants, not the proprietors of the people.
Open your breast, sire, to liberal and expanded thought.
Let not the name of George the third
be a blot in the page of history.
You are surrounded by British counsellors,
but remember that they are parties.
You have no ministers for American affairs,
because you have none taken from among us, nor
amenable to the laws on which they are to give you advice.
It behooves you, therefore, to think
and to act for yourself and your people.
The great principles of right and wrong are
legible to every reader; to pursue them requires
not the aid of many counsellors.
The whole art of government consists
in the art of being honest.
Only aim to do your duty,
and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
No longer persevere in sacrificing the rights of one part
of the empire to the inordinate desires of another;
but deal out to all equal and impartial right.
Let no act be passed by any one legislature which
may infringe on the rights and liberties of another.
This is the important post in which fortune has placed you,
holding the balance of a great, if a well poised empire.
This, sire, is the advice of your great American council,
on the observance of which may perhaps depend
your felicity and future fame, and the preservation of
that harmony which alone can continue both to Great Britain
and America the reciprocal advantages of their connection.
It is neither our wish nor our interest to separate from her.
We are willing on our part to sacrifice everything
which reason can ask to the restoration
of that tranquility for which all must wish.
On their part let them be ready
to establish union and a generous plan.
Let them name their terms, but let them be just.
Accept of every commercial preference
it is in our power to give for such things
as we can raise for their use, or they make for ours.
But let them not think to exclude us from going to other
markets to dispose of those commodities which they cannot
use, or to supply those wants which they cannot supply.
Still less let it be proposed that our properties
within our own territories shall be taxed
or regulated by any power on earth but our own.
The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time;
the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.
This, sire, is our last, our determined resolution; and that
you will be pleased to interpose with that efficacy which
your earnest endeavors may ensure to procure redress
of these our great grievances, to quiet the minds of your
subjects in British America, against any apprehensions
of future encroachment, to establish fraternal love
and harmony through the whole empire, and that
these may continue to the latest ages of time,
is the fervent prayer of all British America!17
He was put on a committee to work on a declaration because of his Summary View.
In 1774 Jefferson began a systematic study of Montesquieu’s
Spirit of the Laws that would go on for two years.
Before the end of 1774 the Virginia Gazette published 200 copies of Jefferson’s work
with the title, A Summary View of the Rights of British America.
On August 6 George Washington purchased several
copies of “Mr. Jefferson’s Bill of Rights.”
Notes
1. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 3-5.
2. Ibid., p. 5-6.
3. Thomas Jefferson: A Life by Willard Sterne Randall, p. 40.
4. Jefferson and His Time Volume 1 Jefferson the Virginian by Dumas Malone,
p. 176-177.
5. Resolution of the Virginia House of Burgesses, 1764 (online)
6. Enclosure: Patrick Henry’s Stamp Act Resolves, 30 May 1765 (online)
7. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham, p. 40, 49.
8. Jefferson’s Literary Commonplace Book ed. Douglas L. Wilson, p. 28.
9. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 740-743.
10. Basic Writings of Thomas Jefferson ed. Philip S. Foner, p. 499.
11. Thomas Jefferson: A Life by Willard Sterne Randall, p. 188.
12. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 187-189.
13. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 6-10.
14. Jefferson the Virginian by Dumas Malone, p. 186.
15. Ibid., p. 188.
16. The Life of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1 by Henry S. Randall, p. 86.
17. Thomas Jefferson Writings, p. 105-122.
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