More handpicked essays just for you.
Essay about declaration of independence by thomas jefferson
Response to Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence
Response to Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Thomas Jefferson and The Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson was the author of The Declaration of Independence, and according to Bellis, Jefferson was also a jurist, a diplomat, a writer, an inventor, a philosopher, an architect, a gardener, a negotiator of Louisiana Purchase, but he only requested three of his many accomplishments to be noted on his tomb. (2005). Thomas Jefferson was a very smart politician and he knew what to say to whom in order to enhance their support. This essay will be an analytical paper discussing Thomas Jefferson and The Declaration of Independence. It will also clarify the basic ideas contained in The Declaration of Independence; the influence of the Declaration upon American War of Independence, and the reasons the Declaration was considered a “Fundamental document.”
Biography:
Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 at Shadwell, Virginia. His mother was Jane Randolph Jefferson; his father was a landowner name Peter Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson attended College (1760-62) of William and Mary. In 1769 he began six years of service as a representative in the Virginia House of Burgesses. In 1770 he begun building Monticello on the land he inherited from his father. It took years to build it, but according to an Internet article Brief…Jefferson, when he married Martha Wayles Skelton on January 1, 1772 part of the Monticello mansion was ready to be lived in. Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson produced six children, but only two survived to adulthood and four were deceased during their childhood. (Brief…Jefferson, 2005). In 1776 he was chosen to draft the Declaration of Independence, “which has been regarded ever since as a charter of American and universal liberties” (Brief…Jefferson, 2005). The same year he also left Congress, he returned to Virginia and served in the legislature, and was elected governor from 1779-81. In 1874, in France he entered public service again, “first as trade commissioner an then as Benjamin Franklin’s successor as minister” (Brief…Jefferson, 2005). According to Brief…Biography article, in 1790 Jefferson accepted the post of secretary of state under his friend George Washington. In 1794, he defeated Adams for president of the United States, and the first notable achievements of his term as president were the purchased of Louisiana Purchased Territory in 1803 and of course his support of the Le...
... middle of paper ...
...as a bit too much. There were or still are who believed that this document was an irrational result of the hot temper that Jefferson wrote with at certain times.
At the end of the document “We, Therefore, The Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do in the name and by Authority of the good people...FREE AND INDEPENDENT ATATES; THAT THEY ARE ABSOLVED from all Allegiance to the British Crown…” (Jefferson, 416). I find that the idea of men being created equal is the major focus of this document, and therefore separated England from America during Jefferson’s time, which was late 18th century.
Works Cited
Bellis, Mary. “Thomas Jefferson-His life as an Inventor.” About.com. 2005. 04 May 2005. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bljefferson.htm.
Jefferson, Thomas. “The Declaration of Independence.” The American Tradition in Literature: 10th ed. Vol. I. (414-416). 04 July 1776. 2002. McGrawhill.
Malone. “Brief Biography of Thomas Jefferson. (1743-1826). 1993. 04 May 2005. http://www.monticello.org/jefferson/biography.html.
Thomas Jefferson wrote his Draft of the Declaration and was influenced by many of the ideas and concepts of John Locke. He did modify some of Locke’s ideas but most of them were the product of Locke’s belief in the Law’s of Nature and the fundamental unalienable rights of all human beings. As a result, their writings influence and demonstrate basic rights of people and make up our government. The world in which we live in is a product of the ideals of these men, who lived over 200 years ago; we are a representation of a republic
Our Declaration of Independence, was penned most notably by Thomas Jefferson in response to the atrocities committed by the British Crown against the citizens of the American Colonies. At the time of the drafting of The Declaration, Jefferson was widely known to be a successful practitioner of Law as a lawyer, and an eloquent writer. It is due to this, that although Jefferson was a member of a five-man committee charged with drafting the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was tapped to be the main author.
Jefferson, Thomas. "The Declaration of Independence." The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines. 8th edition, Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003. 305-308.
Jefferson, Thomas. The. The "Declaration of Independence." July 1776. Kutler, Stanley I. & Co.
One of the greatest conflicts in the history of the United State of America, the Revolutionary War, was started when the colonies of North America declared themselves independent from British rule. A group of men known as the Founding Fathers, which included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John and Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and others, formed the Continental Congress to rule their new nation. They chose Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence, which they would send to King George III to make their independence official. Jefferson knew that he needed to use strong language to make a solid agrument against British rule in the colonies and to convince the colonists that independence was the only choice to maintain their freedom as human beings. The powerful use of parallelism, ethos, pathos, and logos helpd Thomas Jefferson to convey his idea that all men are created equal with unalienable rights and that it is the duty of the government to protect those rights.
Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743 in Virginia (Whitehouse.gov, n.d., para. 2). He came from a rich family, which afforded him to be very well educated. Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence; served as minister of France, governor of Virginia, secretary of state during George Washington’s presidency, and vice-president under John Adams (Thomas Jefferson, n.d., para. 1.) He was also the third president of the United States. Jefferson was an avid opponent of royal ruling and the suppression of individual’s rights, “…I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man” (Whitehouse.gov, n.d., para. 1).
In 1774, A Summary View of the Rights of British America was the first of Thomas Jefferson major political writings for the revolutionary debate. June of 1775 Thomas Jefferson took a seat in the Second Continental Congress that is when the revolution started. In June of 1776, he joined Benjamin Franklin and John Adams on the special committee to draft The Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson was surprised to find himself at the head of the committee to prepare this paper. After Benjamin Franklin and John Adams went over the rough draft the Thomas Jefferson summited to them, they revised it and sent it to Congress. On July 4,1776, the Declaration Of Independence was signed and published.
The way that Jefferson structured The Declaration of Independence made the article extremely influential. Jefferson first starts by sharing his belief that governments and monarchies that do not represent the people. He then goes on to tell the rights that he believes all people should have all over the world. The rights he describes are simple and reasonable. From there his last line of that paragraph is “to prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid World.” Then he starts to describe the injustices done to the colonies by the English crown. His structure works well to persuade people because he does not start immediately accusing the king of all these injustices or with strong languages. Like all good speakers and authors, Jefferson starts off with a lightly worded statement about when a group of people should start a new government. He then transitions to a slightly stronger statement about human rights, and then he goes into his compelling injustices of the king. The injustices that he describes include “He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People. The Declaration of Independence is...
Web. The Web. The Web. 1 Dec. 2013. http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/jefferson.htm>.
During the 1776 meeting of the second Continental Congress Jefferson wrote one of the most famous documents in American history, the Declaration of Independence. This document would become the basis for the writing of the Articles of Conferderation and eventually the United States Constitution.
Throughout history, only a few documents have changed the way we as a nation view politics and carry out our everyday lives. The document mentioned above was the Declaration of Independence. It changed the course of history because it granted America its freedom from Great Britain. Originally, there was a committee created to compose the document which consisted of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson. After conversing with one another, the committee decided that Thomas Jefferson would be the one to write it with the final approval coming from the other four. After writing it and receiving approval from the committee, Jefferson presented it to the House. What happened here was not what the committee originally expected. Not all of the delegates attending the convention approved the document. However, through compromising for the greater good of the “New Nation” and editing to accommodate everyone’s preferences, the document was finally approved by all thirteen colonies.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence for the American colonists to proclaim freedom from Great Britain's oppressor, King George III. American colonists had been suffering for many years when this important document was drafted. King George III had pushed the colonists into a state of tyranny and most decided it was time to start an independent nation under a different type of government. Jefferson focused his piece toward many audiences. He wanted not only King George III and the British Parliament to know the American's feelings, but also the entire world. The time had come for an immense change amongst the American colonists and Jefferson made sure everyone was aware of it by using his superior strategies of persuasion.
He was the third president of the United States and was the author of the Declaration of Independence. He was a leading figure in America’s early development and the governor of Virginia who served in the Virginia legislature during American revolutionary war. Along with serving as a U.S. minister to France and U.S., Jefferson was elected as a president from 1801 to 1809. Jefferson’s thoughts on the national government was that they ought to have limited role in citizen’s lives. In Jefferson's administration, Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark expedition are among the best accomplishments. Jefferson contended that as the time and circumstances changes, laws and constitutions must change along. He argued that ever generation should have the capacity to make its own particular laws and make its own administration. Furthermore, he got married to a young widow named Martha Wayles Skelton in 1772 and lived in Monticello and his wife’s sudden death in 1782 overwhelmed him with a deep distress. However, he returned back to his public life and served as American minister to France. In spite of the fact that Jefferson himself was slave-owner
Vesterman, William, and Thomas Jefferson. "The Declaration of Independence." Great Interdisciplinary Ideas: A Reader for Writers. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. 189. Print.
However, the author 's interpretations of Jefferson 's decisions and their connection to modern politics are intriguing, to say the least. In 1774, Jefferson penned A Summary View of the Rights of British America and, later, in 1775, drafted the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (Ellis 32-44). According to Ellis, the documents act as proof that Jefferson was insensitive to the constitutional complexities a Revolution held as his interpretation of otherwise important matters revolved around his “pattern of juvenile romanticism” (38). Evidently, the American colonies’ desire for independence from the mother country was a momentous decision that affected all thirteen colonies. However, in Ellis’ arguments, Thomas Jefferson’s writing at the time showed either his failure to acknowledge the severity of the situation or his disregard of the same. Accordingly, as written in the American Sphinx, Jefferson’s mannerisms in the first Continental Congress and Virginia evokes the picture of an adolescent instead of the thirty-year-old man he was at the time (Ellis 38). It is no wonder Ellis observes Thomas Jefferson as a founding father who was not only “wildly idealistic” but also possessed “extraordinary naivete” while advocating the notions of a Jeffersonian utopia that unrestrained