“Our ancestors, before their emigration to America,…possessed a right, which nature has given to all men, of departing from the country in which chance, not choice has placed them.”66 In Notes on State of Virginia, written five years after the Declaration, Jefferson might at first appear to side with the god-given rights idea. But he’s as sly as ever. Discussing slavery, he writes: And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but
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