Question

What were some of the problems the colonists had with the
King?
• What were some rights Jefferson thought that every person
should have?
• What did Jefferson recommend the colonists do?

Answer 1

These come from Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. Short answers:

1) Problems the colonists had with the King (examples of grievances)
- Taxing the colonies without their consent (no representation in Parliament).
- Dissolving or obstructing colonial legislatures and preventing laws that the colonies needed.
- Keeping standing armies in the colonies in peacetime and quartering troops among civilians.
- Interfering with the administration of justice (denying trial by jury, sending colonists to be tried in Britain).
- Cutting off trade and imposing unfair commercial restrictions.
- Imposing laws and altering colonial charters without consent.
- Hiring mercenaries and inciting hostility among Native Americans against colonists.
- Extending British jurisdiction over the colonies and treating them as subordinate rather than self-governing.

2) Rights Jefferson said every person should have
- Equality (that “all men are created equal”).
- Natural rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
- The idea that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.
- The right to alter or abolish a government that becomes destructive of those rights.

3) What Jefferson recommended the colonists do
- Formally declare their independence from Britain (break political ties).
- Assume “a separate and equal station” among nations — i.e., create a new nation.
- Establish a government whose powers are based on protecting the people’s rights (and to institute new, republican institutions if needed).