THOMAS JEFFERSON

- American Revolution dissolved in military field + literary one

- From end of wars against Frenchmen and Indians (up to 1763) → Peace of Paris →
Up to ratification of Constitution in 1788
- = polemic writings (sense of nation and american government begins to build)
- Revolutionary american read voraciously + leaders write easily and, leaving rich,
varied material both in print and manuscript (printed word as basis of its identity
- Common sense (noah with the “power to begin the world over again” 1776) The
Federalist (most important questions of age 1788) and Franklins Autobiography
(praise of posteriority and attention of all future notables, 1793) = anything is possible
when right word receives proper emphasis
- BEFORE THE REVOLUTION (LO DE ARRIBA)
- Declaration of Independence and Constitution of United States = important political
documents
- Declaration of Independence (1776), written by a committee, but Thomas
Jeffersons’s work
- Together with Benjamin Franklin ideas are held in the text
- Jefferson: Born in Virginia (1743-1820), third president or US (2 mandates) key figure
of politics and culture
- Established bases of public education + founder of University of Virginia + principal
maker of political bipartite North American system + Louisiana’s purchase and other
western territories (1803) + promote of expedition of Lewis and Clark + parliamentary
protocols in Congress.
- the jeffersonian republic (suficientemente importante para tener un periodo y tema
dedicado solo a él, ponerle nombre)
- Political ideas= individual freedom over authority of state which had to be limited to
indispensable minimum → favoring increase of sense of social responsibility of
individuals and collectivity (<-- religion)
- Man has capacity of improvement + learning + knowledge of himself and world
(franklin autobiography this appears, enlightenment period)
- June 11th Congress nomitade Committee (Jefferson, Franklin main ones, but 5 of
them participated)
- “The Declaration of Indepence I always considered a theatrical show”, Adams says in
1811, “Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that and all the glory of it”
- Adam stress upon committee structure producing Declaration + his instituted upon
community of language behind this declaration
- → presupposes consensual natural of authorship that dominates literature of public
documents in period
- Divided people across 1770s and 1780s - Task is to extract consensus at all costs
- success depends upon how others respond to signification of event (mixed symbol of
celebration and vulnerability)
- Franklin's anecdote supplies four alternatives for making a text in a consensual
setting: (different points que siguieron para que lo aceptaran todos)
- 1: writer imposes private text on public audience - Jeffersons A Summary View of the
Rights of British America 1774
- 2 : writers draws up text in marketplace of debate
 - 3: writer reduces public text into article of faith or icon => sign becomes incontestable
fact when just a name subjoined to figure of hat
- 4: imputed silence -> Constitution never mentions words “national”, “federal”, or
“republic” => less controversial terms
- The fifty-five delegates of Federal Convention agree that “nothing spoken in the
House to be printed”, otherwise published or communicated without leave”
- => in Franklins corrective, practicality of a nation of shopkeepers (seller) supplants
idealism of agrarian ideal (producer)
- Enlightenment in America= political right of self-determination realized (primacy of
reason, reliability of human understanding, value of individual freedom, trusting
method, faith in education, belief in progress + disregard for tradition, authority and
received dogma
- Americans receive European ideas, but use them for own needs in prolonged crisis
of revolution (usan lo que creen que les viene y lo adaptan a sus problemas)

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Second continental congress 1776

- 1st fundamental truth = men’s equality

- Having replaced Lockean formula of “the property” “the pursuit of happiness” became
alienable
- (mirar pg 161 clausulas)
- List of abuses and usurpation suffered by english colonies of north america → right
of these to altering political system in force (syllogism = logical)
- Declaration of Independence = communal autobiography (national constituted and
constructs itself trough writing)
- Reformisme is important
- Secular text redressed in same halo that sacred text
- Leaders of Revolution write to reconcile and to control (guardians of “the great
unthinking mass” Kant’s “what is Enlightenment?” all equal but not that equal, not
same education , read the same things, experiences, not exactly the same)
- Encompass difference within consciously communal perspective
- search for agrement make writing thematically simple but rhetorically complex (easy
persuasion)
- Language deliberately entertains several planes of implication at once (functions)
- → mixed rational, emotional, logical, argumentative, historical, scientific (rhetorical
construction)
- 3 characteristics: text was familiar, dominating and inclusive
- Common meeting point = Denial of british rule → need for a new ruler → abstraction
“the will of people”
- E Pluribus unum ( from many to one) everyone included
Es el lema que figura en el dólar estadounidense. E pluribus unum resume en tres
palabras el espíritu del país, su unidad dentro de la más absoluta diversidad de ese
crisol de razas y culturas que conforman los Estados Unidos de América. Sentirse
identificado por eso
- The committee and the people. Combination of many of the ideas of science, history,
politics… “ we holt these truth to be self evident”
- Common security. Have a leader but all one, no division (aunque lidere uno son una
comunidad)
- First constitutions of the american colonies are important 17th century
- pursuit of happiness come from the scottish enlightenment
- General preoccupation in moral philosophy by 1776 and regular formula in political
writings of John Adams, George Mason, James Wilson, James Otis,
- we have 3 essential strands together: constitutional writing of colonial america + whig
political theory + english common law (writers proficient construction of unified text )
- tonally : language of science and politics coney aura of inevitable consequence
within self evidence
- thematically: whig theory
- Included in the constitution, all people
- “The unanimous declaration of the thirteen united states of america”
- Formal thing at the beginning, at the end all signatures because all included, they are
normal people like everyone
- Post this in the cities, creating an icon, for everybody
- Jefferson consolidates the difference between the religion and politics (church and
state are separated)
- Chosen country. Comes from the puritan dictum. A mision, divine providence.
- Political Career after the revolution when he was president