It’s the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, born on his father’s plantation in Albemarle County, Virginia in 1743 (listen).
He was just thirty-three years old when he was chosen to write the Declaration of Independence. He actually suggested John Adams for the job, but Adams replied, “I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. … [Also] you can write ten times better than I.”
In that founding document, Jefferson wrote the famous words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Jefferson hadn’t invented the idea of human rights. He was borrowing from contemporary philosophers such as David Hume, Adam Smith, John Locke and Voltaire. But he was the first person in history to propose founding a new nation on the basis of those human rights.
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