Jefferson’s own words—within the Declaration and in writings penned before and after—support this conclusion. Seventeen years after the Declaration, as secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson wrote Opinion on the French Treaties. In it, he espoused natural law based in human nature: “Questions of natural right are triable by their conformity with the moral sense & reason of man. Those who write treatises of natural law, can only declare what their own moral sense & reason dictate in the several cases they state.”30 The Declaration, a pinnacle of natural law, is built on humans’ moral sense and
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