Prologue

• Author: Arthur Rizer
• Profession: Director of Justice Policy and a senior fellow at the R Street Institute
• Pages: 9-14

ix

PROLOGUE

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that

they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that

among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—at to secure

these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just

powers from the consent of the governed,—at whenever any Form of

Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to

alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government . . . .”

. . .

“And for the support of this declaration, with a rm reliance on the protection

of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our For-

tunes, & our sacred Honor.”

Who was omas Jeerson? A Founding Father, a President, a slave owner,

and even an inventor? ese, of course, are all accurate descriptions of this

extremely complex man. But do these descriptions capture the true nature of

omas Jeerson? Maybe a more meaningful question would ask, What is

Jeerson’s most lasting contribution? As students today think of Julius Caesar

crossing the Rhine, in a thousand years, what will students think when asked,

“What did omas Jeerson do?”

e answer to this question, with little dispute, is that he authored the

Declaration of Independence.1 We will see in Chapter 7 that this document

not only founded a nation, but also is seen as one of the most inuential docu-

ments in world history, keeping company with the Magna Carta, Martin

Luther’s 95 eses, and the US Constitution. Indeed, it is Jeerson the writer