Jefferson argued four million Americans equal in worth to any British elector

Evidence

When illness kept Jefferson from the convention, his friends published his draft instructions under the title, A Summary View of the Rights of British America. … “Not only the principles of common sense, but the common feelings of human nature must be surrendered up, before his majesty’s subjects here can be persuaded to believe that they hold their political existence at the will of a British parliament,” Jefferson wrote. “Can any one reason be assigned why 160,000 electors in the island of Great Britain should give law to four millions in the states of America, every individual of whom is equal to every individual of them in virtue, in understanding, and in bodily strength?” To this rhetorical question, he replied, “Were this to be admitted, instead of being a free people, as we have hitherto supposed, and mean to continue, ourselves, we should suddenly be found the slaves, not of one, but of 160,000 tyrants.” — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 40

Categorization

• XREF: Jefferson’s equality-of-persons argument here prefigures the Declaration’s ‘all men are created equal’ — useful for the course’s arc from drafting debates to founding principle. — connects to: The Convention’s rhetoric shifted from claiming constitutional rights to blaming the Crown — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 24