What Jefferson Wrought

[Valin]

National Review:

The author of the Declaration laid the philosophical bedrock of the American republic.
Rich Lowry
7/2/10

If only all congressional committees were so inspired.

The committee charged with putting to paper why the Continental Congress had resolved to declare independence from Britain turned to Thomas Jefferson to do its drafting. If the reasons for that choice weren’t particularly profound — Jefferson’s talents as a writer were widely recognized, and no one thought the declaration as important as other pressing revolutionary business — its consequences assuredly were.

Jefferson’s work of a few days was for the ages. John Adams had handed the writing over to the Virginian while he led the floor debate over independence — and came to regret the missed opportunity for glory. “Was there ever a Coup de Theatre that had so great an effect as Jefferson’s Penmanship of the Declaration of Independence,” the jealous Adams later asked, querulously.

But Jefferson’s words were more than rhetorical theatrics; they laid the philosophical bedrock of the American republic. In the space of three magnificent sentences in its preamble, the Declaration packs enough content to fill volumes of treatises on political theory.
In declaring that “all men are created equal,” it insists that there’s no such thing as a natural ruling class. Put another way, it tells us, as Jefferson wrote near the end of his life, “that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of God.”....(snip)

[Valin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1Txi1687wo