"We Hold These Truths to Be Self-evident..." (#2)

According to the epitaph he ordered, Thomas Jefferson wanted to be remembered for three things: founding the University of Virginia, drafting that state's act of religious toleration, and writing the Declaration of Independence. A well-bred child of the Enlightenment, Jefferson dedicated his entire life to the pursuit of Reason, believing rationality and freedom to be the greatest riches of all. Jefferson's legacy was three basic parts. The first part reflected his Tidewater planter background, he voiced the idea of a New World agrarian (equal division of land) paradise that has inspired the national imagination ever since.  Since he was suspicious of cities and industry, same with autocracy, he put farmers as the backbone of the nation, saying that "those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God." When historians speak of Jeffersonian democracy, they mean his vision of the sturdy yeoman (a farmer who cultivates his own land) as nature's nobleman. Jefferson's view brought him consistently into conflict with Alexander Hamilton, whose ideal America was a heavily industrialized merchant's paradise, where the central government actively supported business interests.

Jefferson's second contribution was states' rights, even though it was not a concept he had invented,  but one to which he gave the stamp of great authority. When the Federalist government in 1798 passed the Alien and Sedition Acts-a "gag" order prohibiting criticism of its policies-Jefferson responded by writing the Kentucky Resolutions, which proposed the supremacy of state over federal decisions. Again he clashed with Hamilton, as the treasury chief was the nation's strongest spokesman for the central government's "implied" (expandable) powers.  Division among the Founders on this score led to Jefferson's victory in the 1800 presidential election as the head of a new party, the Democratic Republicans.  

Jefferson's final gift was a document that defined the nation's guiding principles When Richard Henry Lee told the Continental Congress in June, 1776 that the colonies "are, and of right ought to be, free and independent,'" the delegates appointed a committee to put this down on parchment.  As the main author, Jefferson strove not for originality, but for "the common sense of the subject."  In this assessment of his duties, he was reflecting the Enlightenment's faith in human reason. The bulk of the famous document, when finally approved a month later, was a list of grievances against the British Crown ranging from the dissolution (undoing or breaking) of colonial assemblies to the quartering of troops in private homes, from the imposition of tax to the abolition of trial by jury.  The more general ideas of the document come at the end, where the colonies declare their independence, and at the beginning, where Jefferson defines popular government.  He starts with the famous "when in the course of human events" preamble. Then comes the most frequently, quoted passage--Jefferson's "self-evident truths":

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator' certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundations upon such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Basically stating that if your government isn't serving your needs, you can get rid of it and set up something else.

That idea might have been "self-evident" to Thomas Jefferson, but it was hardly a common idea to his fellow citizens. The historical importance of the American Revolution was that it tested these radical notions in the heat of battle. True, it took a Civil War to get blacks into the "all men" rubric, and another fifty years to break down the masculine bias, but Jefferson deserves credit for setting the model

 I learned from this article that we, the people, have much more power than we may think. I also learned that we don't exercise that power enough, and that we are letting the government control us too much, and that we are letting them make too many decisions for us that they think are the "best" for us, when in reality they're usually focusing mainly on themselves. I really think that we need to start stepping up and start representing ourselves again, more than just voting, and stop letting our government decide everything for us, and then whining about it after the fact.

Article 1: http://narnaraptor.blogspot.com/2011/03/bill-of-rights.html
Article 3: http://thoughtsonushistory.blogspot.com/2011/02/early-us-history-nutshells-old-hickory.html