The debate over declaring independence took on such significance in part because a permanent break with London was not foreordained. For years colonists chose to believe that the monarchy was in the hands of nefarious, anti-American ministers. The hope from the 1750s to 1776 was that somehow the sovereign would put things to rights. It is a measure of the confidence Jefferson had in this possibility, for instance, that he maintained a tone of respect and deference to George III in his 1774 Summary View. And it is a measure of the depth of his sense of betrayal and disappointment in the king
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