Colonists' Rights and Obligations to the Monarch & Westminster

Jefferson's family, which was of Welsh, English and Scottish origin, had by the cartridge clip of his birth accumulated substantial wealth, particularly his make's Randolph handsage who were part of the Tidewater plantation aristocracy. His father Peter while hale off had a strong yeoman background, got on fountainhead with the local Indians and possessed, according to Bowers, a "love of liberty and humankind rights."

Members of their families had been leaders in community and colony-wide politics, particularly Otis's, whose father Otis, elder had been in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for 15 years and was its utterer and leader of the rural popular party at the quantify Otis became active in colonial affairs in 1760-1761. Jefferson was associated with the interests of the Piedmont frontiersmen in Virginia, independent farmers, who were, according to Bowers, "essentially democratic, men with no real affection for England." Both men attended stellar(a) colleges, Otis Harvard and Jefferson William and Mary, where they imbibed the classics and other Brtish and Enlightenment works in policy-making philosophy, history and literature. They were trained and practiced as lawyers.

Both men sh bed a strong aversion to tyranny

Galvin, John R. Three Men of Boston. smart York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976.

Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain intrinsic Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Bowers says that before the outbreak of hostilities at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, "few among the patriots were thinking in wrong of absolute independence." He includes Samuel Adams, R. H. Lee and Patrick Henry of Virginia and possibly genus Benzoin Franklin on that list, but not Jefferson. Jefferson was nevertheless becoming progressively radicalized by the course of events. After Lexington and Concord, he said "this separatrix has cut off our last hope at reconciliation.

" From time to time, he made comments that suggested that he wished things were otherwise. At the Second Continental Congress in May 1775, he indicated that he wished for ties with considerable Britain to be restored. As late as August 25, 1975, he said "I hope the returning wisdom of considerable Britain will e'er long put an end to this unnatural contest" and that he was among those "who still wish for a reunification with their parent country." By November 29, 1775 he had reached a parting of the ways. He then said "by the god that made me I will cease to exist before I pass on to a connection on such terms as the British parliament proposes and in this I think I speak the sentiments of America."

Jefferson entertained no such illusions. Referring to the period forward to 1769, he said that "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." Long before his political philosophy had fully developed, Jefferson had been thrilled by fellow Virginian Patrick Henry's stirring oratory in support of the opposition by Massachusetts and other states t
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