Status Updates From Inventing America: Jefferso...

The men who are truly ‘for all times’ were also fully of their own time.

When earth was to be rebuked by heaven, men brought the Declaration to sit in judgment on the Constitution.

Connection with one’s own system of social ties makes for enmity toward an alien system threatening it. Thus the mother will die for her child, the patriot for his country. Though the mind may mistake the grounds for conflict, or misinterpret a menace, response to the menace is automatic and powerful because the bonds of affection are so strong.

Jefferson’s attitude toward property was always closer to Hutcheson’s than to Locke’s…Jefferson, like Hutcheson looked to a constant transferal of property as the healthy ‘circulation’ of society. (That is one reason he contrived his scheme for limiting contracts to nineteen years.) He felt freedom was impossible in Europe, so long as the land was frozen in feudal molds of entail.

…if one generation, in passing on land to the next, leaves it tamed and cultivated, then the next generation is not beholden to nature alone, but to those who gave them nature ‘improved.’ The urge to benefit one’s posterity is a noble one, to be recognized and encouraged: One generation fights for a liberty only its descendants will enjoy in peace.