Enlightenment & Revolutions
Thomas Jefferson
1743–1826 · Natural rights
A little rebellion now and then is a medicine for the state.
In their words
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
Jefferson drafted the Declaration on the premise that rights precede government and that governments forfeit legitimacy by violating them. He wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, cut the federal establishment to the bone, and warned that banks and standing armies end in open monarchy. He also wrote that the tree of liberty must be refreshed with rebellion, while holding hundreds of people in slavery himself, a contradiction his own words indict.
Why it matters for freedom
He wrote the sentence the world still argues from: power derives from the consent of the governed.
Who they stood against
monarchy, established religion, and the sedition law his own party's opponents used