As 1774 drew to a close, Jefferson—at thirty-one years old, a husband, father, lawyer, planter, legislator, and thinker—had moved to a new, higher rank of political skill. The Summary View and his other pieces demonstrated a capacity to reflect and advance the sentiments of his public simultaneously, giving his audience both a vision of the future and a concrete sense that he knew how to bring the distant closer to hand, and dreams closer to reality.
