Why does jefferson praise his subject

Inalienable rights are rights that we are unable to give up, even if we want to. According to the concept of inalienable rights found in the Declaration of Independence, liberty is such a right. That means that if we signed a contract to be a slave, we would not have an obligation to keep it; and despite the contract, no one would have a right to our services. Having rights that are inalienable does not mean they cannot be attacked by our being arbitrarily killed, imprisoned, or otherwise oppressed.

It means that such acts are not morally justified and that we have a ground for moral complaint. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Without them we lose our humanity. With no inherent right to life and liberty, we would be in the same position as ordinary animals such as cattle or sheep. Human beings are different: our right not to be treated like an animal is part of our very nature that we are powerless to change. We are unable to change our nature, and so we are unable to rid ourselves of certain of our essential qualities, such as the capacity to make moral choices.

To answer this, we should bear in mind that in writing the Declaration, Jefferson said he was not attempting to put forth an original philosophy of his own. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness, so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty.

The stronger [the] ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general…the more are we free from [obedience to an immediate impulse for some pleasure].

Every day we make numerous choices in deciding what course of action will add to our well-being—what will make us happy. Making these choices is the pursuit of happiness. The results of our choices are not all equal: we soon discover that choosing some pleasures, especially following momentary impulses, leads not to happiness but to pain. But if we use our faculty of foresight, recalling past experience, we learn to postpone immediate gratification and see what choices are really in our interest.

Thus, learning self-control based on experience is essential to happiness. Pursuing happiness as an inalienable right. Accordingly, our right to make these choices is inalienable, and, unless our actions attack the rights of others, it is wrong for government to interfere. Private happiness, public happiness, and moral goodness. Locke, Jefferson, and others learned from ancient philosophers, especially Aristotle, that these choices have ethical or moral dimensions: those without moral virtue cannot be happy.

From the Preamble to the U. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice , insure domestic tranquility , provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare , and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Justice refers generally to fairness. The meaning of justice has been contested for more than 2, years of human history and remains contested today. The concept of justice has long been divided into three types: distributive justice, procedural justice, and corrective justice. Distributive justice. Distributive justice refers to the fairness of the distribution of benefits and burdens among persons or groups in society. Benefits may be such things as pay for work or the right to speak or vote.

They may include almost anything that can be distributed among a group of people that would be considered useful or desirable, such as praise, awards, opportunities for education, jobs, membership in organizations, or money. Burdens may include obligations, such as homework or chores, working to earn money, paying taxes, serving on juries, or caring for another person. They may include almost anything that can be distributed among a group of people that would be considered undesirable, such as blame or punishment for wrongdoing.

Issues and controversies over the fair distribution of benefits and burdens in society are very common and often highly contested, such as debates over health care benefits and taxes.

Phrases in the Constitution that are designed to promote distributive justice include:. Article IV. Section 2.

Amendment XIV. Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Amendment XV. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Amendment XIX. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Amendment XXIV. They could eliminate the slave trade without eliminating slavery. That was not true in the West Indies or Brazil.

To make any claim of this nature would open them to charges of rank hypocrisy that were best left unstated. If the founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, thought slavery was morally corrupt, how did they reconcile owning slaves themselves, and how was it still built into American law?

Two arguments offer the bare beginnings of an answer to this complicated question. The first is that the desire to exploit labor was a central feature of most colonizing societies in the Americas, especially those that relied on the exportation of valuable commodities like sugar, tobacco, rice and much later cotton. Cheap labor in large quantities was the critical factor that made these commodities profitable, and planters did not care who provided it — the indigenous population, white indentured servants and eventually African slaves — so long as they were there to be exploited.

To say that this system of exploitation was morally corrupt requires one to identify when moral arguments against slavery began to appear. One also has to recognize that there were two sources of moral opposition to slavery, and they only emerged after One came from radical Protestant sects like the Quakers and Baptists, who came to perceive that the exploitation of slaves was inherently sinful.

But the great problem that Jefferson faced — and which many of his modern critics ignore — is that he could not imagine how black and white peoples could ever coexist as free citizens in one republic. There was, he argued in Query XIV of his Notes , already too much foul history dividing these peoples.

And worse still, Jefferson hypothesized, in proto-racist terms, that the differences between the peoples would also doom this relationship. He thought that African Americans should be freed — but colonized elsewhere. Born in in Albemarle County, Virginia, inheriting from his father, a planter and surveyor, some 5, acres of land, and from his mother, a Randolph, high social standing. He studied at the College of William and Mary, then read law.

In he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow, and took her to live in his partly constructed mountaintop home, Monticello. Signing the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson briefly practiced law, at times defending slaves seeking their freedom. During the American Revolution , he represented Virginia in the Continental Congress that adopted the Declaration, drafted the law for religious freedom as a Virginia legislator, and served as a wartime governor — I know that the case you cite, of Dr Drake, has been a common one.

I do not wish to trouble the world with mine, nor to be troubled for them. I have little doubt that the whole of our country will soon be rallied to the Unity of the Creator, and, I hope, to the pure doctrines of Jesus also. Jefferson to John Adams. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors.

Jefferson's Religious Beliefs. An article courtesy of the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia. Click for more. Jefferson and Christianity While Jefferson was a firm theist, the God in which he believed was not the traditional Christian divinity.