by Martie Lownsberry

Created on: August 24, 2009

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. In the case of Thomas Jefferson the pen proved at least as mighty as a hatchet or a rifle.

Although he never threw one box of tea overboard at the Boston Tea Party, and never shot one round during the revolutionary war scholars throughout history have declared Thomas Jefferson to be one of the most patriotic and influential of America's founding fathers.

Thomas Jefferson did in fact, strike several blows for liberty. Instead of a gun he used a pen and and his keen intelligence.

In 1774 after British parliament passed the Coercive Acts an angry Jefferson wrote what was to be his first published work. A Summary view of Rights of British American. In this document he was one of the first if not the first colonist to present the idea that the American Colonists had a natural right to govern themselves.

Although the entire work was considered to be too liberal by many of the colonists at the time he wrote it, the idea that they, the colonists, had a natural right to govern themselves struck home with these independent people. Many of these colonists further believed as Jefferson did, that they were subjects of British rule by choice not by birth.

This writing, was perhaps what inspired the committee appointed to draw up the Declaration of Independence to chose Jefferson as it's author. Although every member of the committee had their say in this great document, and Jefferson's work was somewhat changed before the Declaration was signed many of the sentiments were his.

The Preamble of the Declaration is a powerful and memorable piece of writing that was pure Jefferson.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitles them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to the separation.

We hold these truth's to be self- evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The Declaration of Independence along with the Constitution of the United States are the two documents that Americans live by today.

The sentiments which Jefferson expressed in both the Declaration and his Summary view of the Rights

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>