He set out in the Declaration, he asserted, not just to present his own views but to give “expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.” But that was disingenuous. Jefferson really was attempting something far more difficult. He was employing a plain American idiom while attempting to move the American mind into the future. He was pushing them hard, and far beyond any existing consensus. One month before the Declaration was passed, only four colonies had instructed their delegates to support independence. But the
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