How Is Thomas Jefferson's Rights Related To The Declaration Of Independence
On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to declare the independence of the American colonies from English rule. On the Fourth of July, they approved the final edited version of the Declaration of Independence. The members of the Continental Congress made only two minor changes in the opening paragraphs of Jefferson's draft declaration. Most scholars today believe that Jefferson derived the most famous ideas in the Declaration of Independence from the writings of English philosopher John Locke. Locke wrote that all individuals are equal in the sense that they are born with certain inalienable natural rights. That is, rights that are God given and can never be taken or even given away. Among these fundamental natural rights, Locke said they are life, liberty and property. Locke believed that the most basic human law
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“At an early age, Jefferson concluded that slavery was wrong. To his credit, he attempted to denounce slavery or at least the slave trade in the Declaration of Independence. It appears that while Jefferson opposed slavery in principle, he saw no obvious way to end it once it became established. If the slaves were freed all at once, Jefferson feared that white prejudice and black bitterness would result in a war of extermination that the whites would win. He fretted that if slaves were individually emancipated they would have nowhere to go and no means to survive on their own. Of course, Jefferson along with most other Southern plantation owners were also economically dependent on slave labor. The best Jefferson could come up with was a plan to take slave children from their parents and put them in schools to be educated and taught a trade at public expense. Upon becoming adults, they would be transported to a colony somewhere and given tools and work animals to start a new life as a free and independent
“At an early age, Jefferson concluded that slavery was wrong. To his credit, he attempted to denounce slavery or at least the slave trade in the Declaration of Independence. It appears that while Jefferson opposed slavery in principle, he saw no obvious way to end it once it became established. If the slaves were freed all at once, Jefferson feared that white prejudice and black bitterness would result in a war of extermination that the whites would win. He fretted that if slaves were individually emancipated they would have nowhere to go and no means to survive on their own. Of course, Jefferson along with most other Southern plantation owners were also economically dependent on slave labor. The best Jefferson could come up with was a plan to take slave children from their parents and put them in schools to be educated and taught a trade at public expense. Upon becoming adults, they would be transported to a colony somewhere and given tools and work animals to start a new life as a free and independent