Part I: Thomas Jefferson’s Alternative Theory of American Rights.
This is the culmination of the four essays on Natural Rights and the Declaration of Independence. This essay argues that the Declaration’s position on natural rights theory appears much more ambiguous than is often assumed. Because the Declaration was attempting to state a unified colonial position about independence, its language smooths over and avoids areas of disagreement about natural rights among those favoring independence.

At the heart of this analysis is the argument Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration , had a different view of rights than is commonly ascribed to the Declaration. Jefferson never embraced what is typically thought of as the classic natural rights position and instead held an alternative theory of American rights based on the "natural right to quit society." On two previous occasions, Jefferson had tried to get his alternative view of rights accepted by the Continental Congress but on both occasion his views were rejected. When he sat down to draft the Declaration of Independnece, Jefferson still held a different view of rights and thus had to make a choice-whether to try once again to put forward his own theory of rights or revert to the more traditional theory of natural rights that the Congress had already approved nearly two years earlier. 

The fact that the primary author of the Declaration disagreed with Congress’ official justification of American rights provides a point of departure for rethinking the Declaration’s understanding of natural rights and its relationship to American rights and independence.

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Part II Ambivalence Towards Natural Rights Theory Before the American Revolution. From the Stamp Act to the Farmer’s Letters.

While there is no doubt that Lockean like notions appear in the Declaration of Independence, the story of Locke’s reception in the American context in the period leading up to the revolution (1764-1776) is more complicated than is often understood.  Locke’s ideas and philosophy is a very strong presence in the writings and thought leading up to the revolution. But Locke’s natural rights philosophy is contested both in its meaning and use. The colonists were in fact ambivalent about some of Locke’s natural rights ideas. They did not uniformly invoke Locke, and when they did invoke Locke, they did not always interpret him the same way or for the same purpose. Some key pamphlet writers clearly avoided invoking Locke’s natural rights altogether. Others invoked Locke to make certain points but ignored Locke at other times. Still other writers seem influenced by Lockean ideas even as they deny relying on Locke and as they offer what they consider a new theory of the origin of government. 

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Part III. "Diverging Theories Of Natural Rights Theory Before the Revolution.”

This essays argues there were at least three different ways of thinking about natural rights among the colonies before the Revolution. One stream of thought , evident in the writings of Samuel Adams, saw natural rights as complementary to and embodied in the rights of the British subjects. nother stream of thought evident in the writing of Richard Bland and Thomas Jefferson's A Summary View grounded American rights in the "right to quit" society. Still a third stream of thought transformed natural rights arguments with convental and religious concepts drawn from Christian theology. Finally, some writers continued to avoid natural rights arguments altogether.

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New Essay: Part IV  "The Precariousness of History: What Do We Know About Jefferson On Locke?"
There has been substantial debate on how much Jefferson was influenced by Locke's Second Treatise on Government and Locke's theory of natural rights when writing the Declaration of Independence. In Part I, we looked at an alternative understanding of Jefferson's Declaration. Here I go back to the evidence of what Jefferson read before 1776 to show just how precarious is history as a foundation for understanding what Jefferson thought of Locke. The larger point of the essay is to illustrate just how much historians are involved in constructing stories about the past and how problematic it is to build justifications of rights on history alone.

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Part V. The First Continental Congress and the Attempt To Achieve Consensus

The First Continental Congress in convened in 1774 to declare the rights and grievances of the colonies. A central issue in the first day of debates was whether the Congress would base American rights on natural rights. This essay looks at the debate in Congress and the various positions on natural rights as of 1774. The resulting Declaration of Rights that was issued in October of that month represents a quasi-official view of rights of the colonies and anticipates the Declaration of Independence two years later. But Congress rejected the view of Jefferson, among others, who wanted to base American rights on the right to quit society. Instead Congress argued that the settlers had brought British rights with them to the colonies and the independence from Parliament resulted from the geographical distance that made representation impossible.

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