The Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson)

Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743 in what is now Albemarle County, Virginia, and attended the College of William and Mary. A lawyer, he was
elected to Virginia’s colonial legislature in 1769 and began a distinguished political career that strongly influenced the early development of the
United States. In addition to his participation in the Second Continental Congress of 1775-1776, which ratified the Declaration of Independence, he
served as governor of Virginia; as minister to France; as secretary of state under President George Washington; as vice president under John Adams;
and, finally, as president from 1801 to 1809. After his retirement, he founded the University of Virginia. He died on July 4, 1826.
BACKGROUND ON THE STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE : By the early 1770s, many residents of the original thirteen American colonies had
come to believe that King George III and his ministers, both in England and in the New World, wielded too much power over the colonists. In
particular, they objected to a series of taxes imposed on them by the British Parliament, and, being without political representation, they asserted that
“taxation with representation” amounted to tyranny. In response to a series of laws Parliament passed in 1774 to limit the political and geographic
freedom of the colonists, representatives of each colony met at the Continental Congress of 1774 to draft a plan of reconciliation, but it was rejected.
As cries for independence increased, British soldiers and state militias began to engage in armed conflict, which by 1776 had become a full-
fledged civil war. On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress chose Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and several other delegates to draft a
declaration of independence. The draft was written by Jefferson, with suggestions and revisions contributed by other commission members.
Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence challenges a basic assumption of its time – that they royal monarch ruled by divine right – and, in so doing,
because one of the most important political documents in world history.
As you read, keep in mind that to the British, the Declaration of Independence was a call for open rebellion. For this reason, the Declaration’s
final sentence, in which the signatories pledge their lives, fortunes, and honor, is no mere rhetorical flourish. Had England defeated the colonists,
everyone who signed the Declaration of Independence would have been arrested, charged with treason or sedition, stripped of his property, and
probably hanged.

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When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of
for one people to dissolve the political bands which have large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the
connected them with another, and to assume among the powers right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to
of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of them and formidable to tyrants only.
Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public
which impel them to the separation. Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are with his measures.
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the
the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, people.
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to
powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers,
Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of
dictate that Governments long established should not be changed Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations
for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their
to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is salaries.
their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither
Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their
sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which substance.
constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of without the Consent of our legislatures.
repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the He has affected to render the Military independent of and
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove superior to the Civil power.
this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws;
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
necessary for the public good. For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of
his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has these States:
utterly neglected to attend to them. For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
 For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for
Jury: Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character
offences is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a be the ruler of a free people.
neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish
government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts
once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over
absolute rule into these Colonies: us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their
Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations,
themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and
whatsoever. correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the
his Protection and waging War against us. necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the
Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions,
tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these
scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United
unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British
high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Crown, and that all political connection between them and the
executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and
by their Hands. that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce,
endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States
merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually
pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred
Honor.

Comprehension
1. What “truths” does Jefferson assert are “self-evident”?
2. What does Jefferson say is the source from which governments derive their powers?
3. What reasons does Jefferson give to support his premise that the United States should break away from Great Britain?
4. What conclusions about the British crown does Jefferson draw from the evidence he presents?
Purpose and Audience
5. What is the major premise of Jefferson’s argument? Should Jefferson have done more to establish the truth of the premise?
6. The Declaration of Independence was written during a period now referred to as the Age of Reason. In what ways has
Jefferson tried to make his document appear reasonable?
7. For what audience (or audiences) was the document intended? Which groups of readers would have been most likely to
accept it? Explain.
8. How effectively does Jefferson anticipate and refute the opposition?
9. In paragraph 31, following the list of grievances, why does Jefferson address his “British brethren”?
10. At what point does Jefferson state his thesis? Why does he state it where he does?
Style and Structure
11. How does the Declaration of Independence use persuasive techniques? Identify examples of each.
12. What techniques does Jefferson use to create smooth and logical transitions from one paragraph to another?
13. Why does Jefferson list all of his twenty-eight grievances? Why doesn’t he just summarize them or mention a few
representative grievances?
14. Jefferson begins the last paragraph of the Declaration of Independence with “We, therefore.” How effective is this
conclusion? Explain.
Vocabulary
15. Underline ten words that have negative connotations. How does Jefferson use these words to help him make his point? Do
you think words with more neutral connotations would strengthen or weaken his case? Why?
16. What words does Jefferson use that are rarely used today? Would the Declaration of Independence be more meaningful to
today’s readers if it were updated, with more familiar words substituted? To help you formulate your response, rewrite a
paragraph or two, and assess your updated version.